Construct validation theory is founded upon conflicting metaphysical principles, methodological approaches, and standards of adequacy. This paper explores these unrecognized conflicts and indicates some consequences that these conflicts have for construct validation theory. (Author/PN)

The authors criticize the value-free notion of social science and evaluation. They particularly assail relativists, those who confuse the making of reliable value judgments with how these value judgments are used. (Author/PN)

The author argues that one of the worst aspects of logical positivism is its attempt to construct a value-free science and to exclude values from the scientific process. (Author/PN)

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)

Ethical issues; institutional characteristics and organizational arrangements; and roles and skills of the researcher must be considered if the government is to apply social science research findings more widely for the public good. (Available from: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 433 California St., San Francisco, CA 94104, single issue, $6.95.) (Author/GDC)

The promise of the stakeholder approach to evaluation lies in its potential to counter criticism that evaluation is too narrow, unrealistic in its standards for success, unfair to program staff and participants, and irrelevant to decision makers. (Author)

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)

The judicial branches of government have unique needs for evaluative information and limited resources; this must be recognized in order to increase the utilization of applied social research by courts and lawyers. (Available from: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 433 California St., San Francisco, CA 94104, single issue, $6.95.) (GDC)