| Session Title: Educating for Intelligent Belief in Evaluation |
| Plenary Session 500 to be held in International Ballroom on Friday, November 9, 8:00 AM to 9:05 AM |
| Sponsored by the Presidential Strand |
| Chair(s): |
| Leslie Goodyear, Education Development Center Inc, lgoodyear@edc.org |
| Presenter(s): |
| Thomas Schwandt, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, tschwand@uiuc.edu |
| Abstract: In societies around the world today, the word evaluation is omnipresent in the language of elites and most certainly in the language used by governments, businesses, and organizations to represent themselves and justify their actions. Evaluation seems to be thoroughly integrated in the organization of human affairs; but is it? Increasingly, what goes on in the name of evaluation is not about judging value but about the assurance of conformance to plan (e.g., quality assurance, performance monitoring, and impact evaluation). What is involved in learning evaluation as a special kind of critical appraisal, inspection, questioning, scrutiny, and judgment of value? How and where does this learning take place? How is this way of learning evaluation of central importance to our understanding of democracy and the idea of public responsibility for the common good? |