Monitor & Evaluate Your Impact

Mirka Martel

Head of Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning

At IIE, we don’t just believe in the power of international education. We can measure it. With extensive experience in carrying out all stages of program monitoring and evaluation, we have a unique combination of international education subject matter expertise and M&E acumen. Our data is used to assess the impact of myriad scholarship, fellowship and training programs for our clients, and inform policy worldwide.

Monitor Participant & Program Success

IIE has been a leader in international education for nearly a century. Through decades of monitoring and evaluating our programs, we have extensive data that have helped inform the development of sustainable initiatives and programs around the world.

Evaluate Program & Alumni Impact

Evaluating the impact of a program and its alumni is essential in proving the value of a program and scaling it around the globe. We routinely conduct follow-up studies and surveys – such as the Ford Foundation IFP Alumni Tracking Study – to determine the strengths and areas of growth in all of our programs.

Measure Student Mobility

We want to ensure students around the globe are given opportunities to grow and study abroad. Through such research projects as Open Doors and Project Atlas, we gather, analyze and apply student mobility data to inform decision making about internationalization at the institutional, national and policy levels.

Our Evaluation Approach

Our approach to assessing the efficacy of our programs draws on IIE's deep understanding of the various program elements needed to bring about change at the individual, community, and societal level. We recognize that it takes many years to achieve measurable impact and to bring about social change. Therefore, at the outset of the project, we work closely with program staff to develop a comprehensive and clear logic model or theory-of-change that maps out the short-, intermediate- and long-term outcomes that are expected from the program and the pathways and logical links through which these changes are likely to occur.
Most of IIE's evaluations have required a mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative data and analysis, but we also have the capability to design and conduct rigorous evaluations that use a random assignment approach. For programs with a large number of participants, IIE also uses social media to stay in touch with thousands of program alumni and potential respondents dispersed all over the world. IIE coordinates the networking through Facebook and Twitter, and our recently revamped IIE Home Page. We harness these, as well as other tools, for alumni tracking, for sustaining alumni networks, and for conducting quick snapshot surveys that complement the in-depth data collected through the techniques described above.