This monograph reviews and synthesizes highlights from relevant writings on evaluation and suggests interpretations and applications for practitioners who plan and conduct various types of educational programs for adults. It suggests that planning and conducting effective educational programs for adults entails contributions by various stakeholders including participants, instructors, coordinators, policymakers, and funders. Concepts, procedures, and examples from evaluation reports are used to represent eight aspects: needs, context, goals, staffing, participation, programs, materials, and outcomes. Many evaluations focus on just one or two of these aspects. Conducting a program evaluation entails many decisions that can be grouped into eight broad action guidelines. The guidelines pertain to purpose, stakeholders, planning, coordination, sources, data collection, analysis, and utilization. Many examples contain enough detail to portray the actual evaluation project and not just illustrate a guideline. Readers can use this overview to clarify basic evaluation concepts and procedures, locate publications likely to provide detailed assistance, and use suggested guidelines to conduct evaluations on selected program aspects of interest. Selecting a program on which to focus should entail selecting an issue of importance, being responsive to stakeholder interest, and considering available expertise and resources for evaluation. (Contains 113 references.) (SK)