| Roundtable: Use, Ethics, and Not Giving Clients What They Ask For |
| Roundtable Presentation 753 to be held in SAN JACINTO on Saturday, Nov 13, 10:00 AM to 10:45 AM |
| Sponsored by the Evaluation Use TIG |
| Presenter(s): |
| Rachael Lawrence, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, rachaellawrence@ymail.com |
| Sharon Rallis, University of Massachusetts, sharallis@gmail.com |
| Abstract: In 2009, we were contracted to evaluate degrees of collaboration between two agencies functioning as state contractors to serve adolescents institutionalized in mental health facilities. One agency provides residential treatment for adolescents; the other provides schooling. The final evaluation product was to be a “metric [that the agencies could then use] for measuring the effectiveness of collaboration.” From observations and interviews, we saw that no shared definitions or practices of collaboration existed across sites. Since we believe the agencies could not measure what they could not define, we chose not to deliver the requested metric. What we reported instead provided clarifications and descriptions that stakeholders found more insightful and thus ultimately more useful than a set of manufactured and irrelevant metrics. This roundtable discusses and analyzes design, execution, decisions, and resulting use through a framework that draws on the AEA Guiding Principles for Evaluators and various theories of evaluation use. |