The movement away from strictly conventional evaluation practices and toward new and more responsive models of inquiry seems inescapable when one ponders the future of evaluation. A more activist-oriented and more stakeholder-oriented model of evaluation seems to be the future of the field. (SLD)

Using architectural design as a model, the article discusses the process of evaluation design. Like the architect, the evaluator faces a problem of finding forms that best fit a partially defined set of contextual demands. The context is the set of all factors which made demands upon the final design form. Like the architect, the evaluator's…

A sample of 459 American Evaluation Association members was surveyed about ethical challenges they encountered in evaluation work. Respondents report a wide variety of ethical conflicts, with evaluators frequently pressured to compromise their roles as scientists and the evaluation product. A framework is proposed for interpreting these findings.…

This paper addresses some of the concerns inherent in evaluating feminists' projects and focuses on three topics: (1) a discussion of some objections raised by feminists about traditional forms of assessment; (2) a description of the strengths and weaknesses of illuminative evaluation as an alternative approach to evaluate feminist programs; and…

Seven chapters present 31 propositions challenging traditional ideas about the nature and practice of program evaluation. Methods to improve evaluation models and approaches and ways to address intermediate and advanced evaluation issues are explored. The discussion also serves as an introduction to the most analytical and comprehensive of the…

This paper addresses the main issues related to concepts of school effectiveness and their implications, with a focus on the selection of school-performance indicators. School effectiveness has many definitions, which is in part due to the different demands made by various social groups. The boundaries of performance within which schools should…

The politics of program evaluation are discussed from the personal perspective of the Director of the General Accounting Office's Program Evaluation and Methodology Division, which has produced reports for committees of the United States Congress. It is concluded that successful evaluations must be useful to others and must understand the…

The evaluation team of the Lincoln Public Schools (Nebraska) used the multi-attribution utility technology (MAUT) approach to prioritize potential evaluation projects. The priorities were used to allocate resources to the district's most important projects, and to eliminate or scale down less important projects. The problem was caused initially…