Evaluation

In common usage, evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit and worth, using criteria governed by a set of standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any other intervention or initiative to assess any aim, realizable concept/proposal, or any alternative, to help in decision-making; or to generate the degree of achievement or value in regard to the aim and objectives and results of any such action that has been completed.

The primary purpose of evaluation, in addition to gaining insight into prior or existing initiatives, is to enable reflection and assist in the identification of future change. Evaluation is often used to characterize and appraise subjects of interest in a wide range of human enterprises, including the arts, criminal justice, foundations, non-profit organizations, government, health care, and other human services. It is long term and done at the end of a period of time.

Evaluation is commonly used to refer specifically to program evaluation or policy evaluation, which involves evaluating social policy and programs. It can also refer to a transdiscipline: any approach involving evaluative thinking, whatever the subject area.

Definition

Evaluation is the structured interpretation and giving of meaning to predicted or actual impacts of proposals or results. It looks at original objectives, and at what is either predicted or what was accomplished and how it was accomplished. So evaluation can be formative, that is taking place during the development of a concept or proposal, project or organization, with the intention of improving the value or effectiveness of the proposal, project, or organization. It can also be summative, drawing lessons from a completed action or project or an organization at a later point in time or circumstance.

Evaluation is inherently a theoretically informed approach (whether explicitly or not), and consequently any particular definition of evaluation would have been tailored to its contextthe theory, needs, purpose, and methodology of the evaluation process itself. Having said this, evaluation has been defined as:

• A systematic, rigorous, and meticulous application of scientific methods to assess the design, implementation, improvement, or outcomes of a program. It is a resource-intensive process, frequently requiring resources, such as, evaluate expertise, labor, time, and a sizable budget
• "The critical assessment, in as objective a manner as possible, of the degree to which a service or its component parts fulfills stated goals" (St Leger and Wordsworth-Bell). The focus of this definition is on attaining objective knowledge, and scientifically or quantitatively measuring predetermined and external concepts.
• "A study designed to assist some audience to assess an object's merit and worth" (Stufflebeam). An alternative view is that "projects, evaluators, and other stakeholders (including funders) will all have potentially different ideas about how best to evaluate a project since each may have a different definition of 'merit'. The core of the problem is thus about defining what is of value."

Not all evaluations serve the same purpose some evaluations serve a monitoring function rather than focusing solely on measurable program outcomes or evaluation findings and a full list of types of evaluations would be difficult to compile. drawing on a number of disciplines, which include management and organizational theory, policy analysis, education, sociology, social anthropology, and social change.

Discussion

However, the strict adherence to a set of methodological assumptions may make the field of evaluation more acceptable to a mainstream audience but this adherence will work towards preventing evaluators from developing new strategies for dealing with the myriad problems that programs face. However, specific guidelines particular to the evaluator's role that can be utilized in the management of unique ethical challenges are required. The Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation has developed standards for program, personnel, and student evaluation. The Joint Committee standards are broken into four sections: Utility, Feasibility, Propriety, and Accuracy. Various European institutions have also prepared their own standards, more or less related to those produced by the Joint Committee. They provide guidelines about basing value judgments on systematic inquiry, evaluator competence and integrity, respect for people, and regard for the general and public welfare.

The American Evaluation Association has created a set of Guiding Principles for evaluators. The order of these principles does not imply priority among them; priority will vary by situation and evaluator role. The principles run as follows:

• Systematic inquiry: evaluators conduct systematic, data-based inquiries about whatever is being evaluated. This requires quality data collection, including a defensible choice of indicators, which lends credibility to findings. Findings are credible when they are demonstrably evidence-based, reliable and valid. This also pertains to the choice of methodology employed, such that it is consistent with the aims of the evaluation and provides dependable data. Furthermore, utility of findings is critical such that the information obtained by evaluation is comprehensive and timely, and thus serves to provide maximal benefit and use to stakeholders. Evaluators are ethically required to respect the customs and beliefs of those who are impacted upon by the evaluation or program activities. Examples of how such respect is demonstrated is through respecting local customs e.g. dress codes, respecting peoples privacy, and minimizing demands on others' time. The independent evaluation units of the major multinational development banks (MDBs) have also created the Evaluation Cooperation Group to strengthen the use of evaluation for greater MDB effectiveness and accountability, share lessons from MDB evaluations, and promote evaluation harmonization and collaboration.

Perspectives

The word "evaluation" has various connotations for different people, raising issues related to this process that include; what type of evaluation should be conducted; why there should be an evaluation process and how the evaluation is integrated into a program, for the purpose of gaining greater knowledge and awareness? There are also various factors inherent in the evaluation process, for example; to critically examine influences within a program that involve the gathering and analyzing of relative information about a program.

Michael Quinn Patton motivated the concept that the evaluation procedure should be directed towards:

• Activities
• Characteristics
• Outcomes
• The making of judgments on a program
• Improving its effectiveness,
• Informed programming decisions

Founded on another perspective of evaluation by Thomson and Hoffman in 2003, it is possible for a situation to be encountered, in which the process could not be considered advisable; for instance, in the event of a program being unpredictable, or unsound. This would include it lacking a consistent routine; or the concerned parties unable to reach an agreement regarding the purpose of the program. In addition, an influencer, or manager, refusing to incorporate relevant, important central issues within the evaluation

Approaches

There exist several conceptually distinct ways of thinking about, designing, and conducting evaluation efforts. A number of the evaluation approaches in use today make unique contributions to solving important problems, while others refine existing approaches in some way.

Classification of approaches

Two classifications of evaluation approaches by House and Stufflebeam and Webster can be combined into a manageable number of approaches in terms of their unique and important underlying principles.

House considers all major evaluation approaches to be based on a common ideology entitled liberal democracy. Important principles of this ideology include freedom of choice, the uniqueness of the individual and empirical inquiry grounded in objectivity. He also contends that they are all based on subjectivist ethics, in which ethical conduct is based on the subjective or intuitive experience of an individual or group. One form of subjectivist ethics is utilitarian, in which "the good" is determined by what maximizes a single, explicit interpretation of happiness for society as a whole. Another form of subjectivist ethics is intuitionist/pluralist, in which no single interpretation of "the good" is assumed and such interpretations need not be explicitly stated nor justified.

These ethical positions have corresponding epistemologies—philosophies for obtaining knowledge. The objectivist epistemology is associated with the utilitarian ethic; in general, it is used to acquire knowledge that can be externally verified (intersubjective agreement) through publicly exposed methods and data. The subjectivist epistemology is associated with the intuitionist/pluralist ethic and is used to acquire new knowledge based on existing personal knowledge, as well as experiences that are (explicit) or are not (tacit) available for public inspection. House then divides each epistemological approach into two main political perspectives. Firstly, approaches can take an elite perspective, focusing on the interests of managers and professionals; or they also can take a mass perspective, focusing on consumers and participatory approaches.

Stufflebeam and Webster place approaches into one of three groups, according to their orientation toward the role of values and ethical consideration. The political orientation promotes a positive or negative view of an object regardless of what its value actually is and might be—they call this pseudo-evaluation. The questions orientation includes approaches that might or might not provide answers specifically related to the value of an object—they call this quasi-evaluation. The values orientation includes approaches primarily intended to determine the value of an object—they call this true evaluation.

When the above concepts are considered simultaneously, fifteen evaluation approaches can be identified in terms of epistemology, major perspective (from House), and orientation.