Violence against women is a significant problem on America's college campuses. In response to this violence, many universities have developed direct service programs to assist the survivors of violence as well as educational programs to raise awareness about and/or reduce the likelihood of such violence. There has been no scholarly inquiry regarding the success of direct services for survivors of violence on the college campus, and only a small number of studies have ventured to investigate the effectiveness of anti-violence educational programming.

This study employed a three-phase sequential mixed methods design to explore the definition of success for these anti-violence direct services and educational programs, as well as to investigate how such programs conceptualize and use evaluation. Specifically, this study used document review, focus groups, and a self-administered survey. The population for this study was the group of institutions of higher education that were funded by the federal Grants to Reduce Violence Against Women on Campus in 2008 (N=54).

This exploratory study had numerous findings related to how program staff members define success and what they think about and how they use evaluation. Success for victim service programs seemed to be based primarily on process rather than outcomes, and there was very little expectation on the part of university administrators or the federal funding agency to demonstrate effectiveness. Staff members reported that outcomes were largely considered incommensurable with advocacy-based models of direct services on the college campus. There was more reported assessment of educational programming, with most universities employing local and informal approaches to evaluation. This study found evidence of instrumental and process use of evaluation and identified areas that may need clarification in the conceptualization of evaluation influence.