Читать книгу An Introduction to Evaluation - Chris Fox - Страница 10

Evaluation is a broad concept and one that is sometimes difficult to distinguish both from other types of research and from related practices such as monitoring, performance management and audit. We start this chapter by looking at the various definitions of evaluation, distinguishing those that concentrate on the purpose of evaluation, the methods used in evaluation, and the significance of judgements of value in evaluation. We consider each of these briefly before adopting a definition of evaluation based on judgements of value. This is a definition that emphasises the political dimension of evaluation – a key distinguishing feature that will help us differentiate it from other types of research activity.

Evaluation covers a range of activity types. People commonly talk and write about formative and summative evaluation, process (implementation) and impact (outcome) evaluation, and economic evaluation and theory-led evaluation. All of these terms raise questions about the nature and role of evaluation which we will address at various points in the book. In this chapter we will look at types and models of evaluation before discussing some key trends that have shaped the world of evaluation over recent decades.

The final section of this chapter looks briefly at the history of evaluation. It aims to introduce readers new to evaluation to some of the ‘big’ ideas that have helped shape the sector and are still debated today. In particular the flux between ‘scientific’ and ‘naturalistic’ approaches to evaluation is discussed. Many of the ideas raised in this chapter will be developed in detail in later chapters.