Evaluation in Instructional Design

The implicit importance of evaluation in instructional design seems so obvious that it is surprising to learn that companies rarely engage in level 3 and 4 evaluations. Certainly one of the most basic reasons for this is cost. To develop a program costs money, but that expense cannot be avoided since the existence of the project depends on an investment. On the other hand, once a project is completed and put into practice, any further costs are an expense above and beyond the product itself. One can see the temptation to use the product and hope for the best as to its effectiveness. I've had this experience as a graphic designer designing advertisements. The clients accept the fees for ad development and ad insertion into a magazine, but are loathe to invest in follow-up as to the effectiveness of the ad. Their reasoning works something like this: If the ad is working, we'll have more business which means the ad will pay for itself and then some (and we don't want to reduce the profit by spending money on follow-up analysis of effectiveness). If the ad is not working, spending money to find that out will only contribute to the loss. It is as though they are arguing that it is most profitable to do what should work, but remain ignorant of the actual final results. One way to change this is to embed the social costs into the project. In other words, the results gained determine the final amount paid for the project.