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Session Title: Learning (More) About Evaluation: Unfinished Business
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Panel Session 573 to be held in Liberty Ballroom Section B on Friday, November 9, 11:15 AM to 12:00 PM
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Sponsored by the Theories of Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Thomas Schwandt,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
tschwand@uiuc.edu
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| Abstract:
This panel invites the audience to think about two ways in which we learn about and develop a self-understanding of evaluation. One commonly accepted self-understanding of evaluation is that it is a logic, set of methods, procedures, and evaluation models used by an individual evaluator (agent) or team of evaluators (agents) to judge merit and worth, and that evaluations are 'used' for the purposes of 'improvement' or 'betterment' (variously understood). Another way of learning about evaluation is to regard it as a socially constituted discursive practice (or set of practices) and to ask 'what is accomplished in the name of evaluation' and 'how do social practices of evaluation shape other social practices in education, health care, public administration, and social service.' In this panel we draw out differences between these self-understandings of evaluation and point to some consequences for what that means to 'learn about' evaluation.
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Tools to Evaluate Evaluands?
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| Peter Dahler-Larsen,
University of Southern Denmark,
pdl@sam.sdu.dk
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Dahler-Larson will explain several assumptions embedded in the idea of evaluation as a set of tools and associated ideas of the 'use' of evaluation. Typically, evaluation is presented as something that is both neutral and rational-a tool that serves to examine the value of means or bridge the gap between goals and their accomplishment; in short, a rational way of getting things done.
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Practices That Evaluate Practices
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| Thomas Schwandt,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
tschwand@uiuc.edu
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Schwandt will discuss what it means to think of evaluation as a set of socially constituted practices that engage and influence other kinds of social practices. For example, there is a strong sense in which evaluation is actually agentless, that is, it is a set of processes, ways of proceeding, and ways of thinking that govern, or otherwise influence practices of public administration, teaching, social work, and so on. Evaluation practices serve to mobilize languages of science, reason, and common sense and thereby shape the way we think about practices of public health, social services, education, the environment, and so on. In this way, we look at what is accomplished or done in the name of evaluation other than as a contractual relationship between evaluator and client.
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