This article, located in the discipline of academic literacy studies, draws upon the fields of critical realism, design research, and evaluation studies. It reports on the validation of a flexible evaluation design for assessing the impact of academic literacy interventions. The design was validated in two ways. Firstly, through a process of critical reflection, the researcher considers her own experience with applying the evaluation design to an academic literacy course; the weaknesses and limitations that emerged from this implementation are considered. Secondly, academic literacy specialists responsible for a wide variety of interventions in South Africa were consulted by means of a questionnaire containing both quantitative and qualitative questions. The purpose of this questionnaire was to determine to which extent the evaluation design could be applied to a variety of academic literacy interventions in various contexts. Recommendations regarding the refinement of the evaluation design are made, and a revised evaluation design is put forward.