The aim of this chapter is to characterize educational reforms in Latin America over the last 25 years, and the way they reflect the role, method, and use of evaluation processes. The main theoretical and methodological tensions that are created by the development of evaluations will be reviewed, concluding with the identification of some of the…

The author regards development of Australia's ill-fated Research Quality Framework (RQF) as a "live experiment" in determining the most appropriate approach to evaluating the extra-academic returns, or "impact," of a nation's publicly funded research. The RQF was at the forefront of an international movement toward richer…

The author develops the basic idea of evaluation policy, describes a practical model for development and revision of evaluation policies (including a taxonomy, structure, and set of principles), and suggests critical challenges and opportunities for the future of evaluation policy. An evaluation policy is any rule or principle that a group or…

The study of the consequences of evaluation, or more specifically of evaluation use or utilization, represents a significant portion of the body of research on evaluation. Much has been written on the evolution of the multidimensional concept of evaluation use, most recently the examination of consequences of evaluation that are not a function of…

This final chapter summarizes the areas of consensus in the debate on method choice, including considering the nature of the primary evaluation questions, the nature of the phenomenon being evaluated, the constraints on the evaluation, and ethical issues. Pragmatic suggestions based on these areas as well as areas still in contention are offered.…

This article reviews the evolution of American Evaluation Association's (AEA) Independent Consulting Topical Interest Group (IC TIG). The TIG goes back a joint meeting held in San Francisco in 1984 of the Evaluation Network (ENet) and the Evaluation Research Society (ERS), two years before the organizations merged to become the AEA. On the fringes…

The extent to which evaluation and auditing have converged on procedures in recent years and the extent to which they remain different are examined in the five chapters of this special issue. Different emphases, the question of collaboration with the subjects of inquiry, and issues of routinized performance are explored. (SLD)

As is typically the case when this author sets fingers to keyboard and writes about evaluation, his intent is to offer his work and perspective as "one" African American evaluator. The impetus for the thoughts and ideas he expresses in this article were prompted by his preparation to attend and present a paper at the inaugural annual…

In 2001, the Bunche Academy was chosen by its district to join in partnership with the Da Vinci Learning Corporation to embark on an ambitious whole-school reform initiative, especially designed by the corporation for low-performing schools. In this chapter, the author describes how, as illustrated in the Bunche-Da Vinci Learning Academy context,…