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As with research, evaluations pose a number of issues that relate more specifically to the way the ‘subjects’ of the evaluations – the stakeholders – are treated by the evaluator. The ethics in this case relate mostly to the stakeholders’ rights, which the evaluator must respect and uphold in the process of the evaluation. For instance, all stakeholders have the right to be informed about the purpose and objectives of the evaluation, and all the evaluation stakeholders who will be interviewed or surveyed have the right to confidentiality and to have their data protected from wider access.

Overall, these are often called the guiding (ethical) principles and these days it is a widely accepted fact that these principles must apply to all evaluations. Simons (2006), drawing on Newman and Brown (1996), distinguishes between:

 ethical rules which are specific statements about ethical behaviour

 ethical codes and standards which are compilations of ethical rules

 ethical principles with are broader than rules and serve as the foundation for codes

In this section we set out some commonly accepted principles related to participants’ and stakeholders’ rights:

 informed consent

 voluntary participation

 do no harm

 confidentiality and anonymity

and guiding principles that should govern to evaluators’ inherent ethics and ethical behaviour:

 professional integrity

 openness and respect for diversity

 cultural competency

These principles apply to all evaluations. However, as Simons notes:

[T]he choice of methodology and the procedures adopted in using methodology reflect a particular ethical and political stance which will affect how the evaluator resolves dilemmas. (Simons 2006: 257)

Particularly difficult is the question of whether the selection of evaluation methods and the quality standards adhered to in using those methods are themselves ethical questions. We touch on this issue again in Chapter 12 when we look at different research paradigms.