Bickman, Leonard

(b. 1941, Bronx, New York). Ph.D. City University of New York; M.A. Columbia University; B.S. City College of New York.

Bickman was among the first evaluators to recognize the importance of not doing “black box” evaluations in which only inputs and outputs were measured. He stressed the significance of understanding how a program was supposed to produce a predicted outcome. His alternative approach provided a different way of understanding program success and failure. Bickman also led several award-winning evaluations that demonstrated how to use program theory and how to conduct large-scale cost-effectiveness evaluations that had significant policy impact.

His professional undertakings have been most influenced by people early in his career, such as Stanley Milgram and Harold Proshansky, professors of Bickman's at the City University of New ...