A pilot study of the use of an investigative journalism document-tracking procedure in the evaluation of library operations is discussed. The technique provides a straightforward but powerful method of evaluation that is equally applicable in simple studies and complex investigations. (Author/AL)

Two forms of naturalistic evaluation have appeared within the past decade: (1) a collection of qualitative techniques that are complimentary with conventional quantitative methods; and (2) an alternative paradigm that emphasizes the negotiation of multiple socially constructed realities, interdependence of facts and values, and the emergent…

The author feels that the stakeholder approach unavoidably pushes the evaluation toward technical compromises and accommodations that diminish the long-term gains in knowledge. (PN)

Stakeholder-based studies modify the relationship between evaluator and user, producing conflict that can cause evaluators to regress to familiar, traditional patterns that leave interactive evaluation strategies only partially implemented. (Author/PN)

Analysis of the assumptions underlying the stakeholder approach to evaluation combined with the limited experience in testing the approach reported in this volume, suggests that some claims are cogent and others problematical. (Author)

The evaluation activities of HEW's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation are used as a case study of a central evaluation unit in a multilevel organization. Several evaluation roles are discussed: oversight, coordination, leadership, and information dissemination. (Author/AL)

Case studies of educational program evaluations demonstrate that utilization of evaluative information occurs; however, its forms and the forces influencing utilization are complex. Naturalistic methods were used to study utilization. (See RIE: ED 174 666). (Available from: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 433 California St., San Francisco, CA 94104, single…

Dynamics of a large, expensive, and controversial surface and underground evaluation of a radioactive waste management program at the Yucca Mountain power plant are reviewed. The use of private contractors in the quality assurance study complicates the evaluation. This case study illustrates high stakes evaluation problems. (SLD)

Characteristics of new information technologies have implications for their evaluation. The instability of most technologies, and their novelty for most users, calls into question the value of experimental summative studies. Their interactive character challenges the traditional formative paradigm. Case studies and field experiments can help to…

The evaluators of Push/Excel assumed that it was a systematically developed program with measurable outcomes, not a charismatically inspired movement whose effects would be hard to pin down. As a result, neither the program nor the evaluation approach used were adequately tested. (Author)

Through a retrospective study, the methods of investigative journalism are analyzed as they are applied to a statewide evaluation of student achievement and to a local school evaluation of new student registration procedures. The benefits and shortcomings of the journalistic approach are illustrated. (Author/AL)

Critiquing the stakeholder idea, the author states: if government chooses to take account of competing views in social program evaluation, it can get a better result if it encourages the competing views to find a voice of their own, not to speak through the government's chosen instrument. (Author/PN)

Deliberately involving urban education stakeholders in the Cities-in-Schools evaluation study improved the utility of the findings for formative evaluation stakeholders but not for summative evaluation stakeholders. (Author/PN)

Stakeholder evaluation was designed to address widely recognized problems in the conduct of evaluation. However, global propositions about the problems and prospects of program evaluation obscure the circumstances in which social science can contribute to social problem solving. (Author/PN)

In evaluation, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts when quantitative and qualitative approaches and methods are combined. Some circumstances in which both approaches can be effectively combined are considered, and case studies of two evaluations using multiple methods are presented. (LMO)