| Session Title: Values and Valuing: The Core of Professional Practice |
| Demonstration Session 564 to be held in Avila B on Friday, Nov 4, 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM |
| Sponsored by the Systems in Evaluation TIG |
| Presenter(s): |
| Bob Williams, Independent Consultant, bobwill@actrix.co.nz |
| Martin Reynolds, Open University, m.d.reynolds@open.ac.uk |
| Abstract: Evaluation is regarded amongst many practitioners as a profession. But does it deserve that status? What is at the core of professional practice and how well do evaluators walk the distance from being a tradesperson doing a client's bidding (serving 'wants') to being a professional with wider, more responsible, concerns (identifying and iterating on 'needs')? The presenters argue that how evaluators handle the implicit and explicit values underpinning the evaluation task is at the core of professional practice. This session demonstrates how core ideas drawn from the field of systems thinking in practice provide a means of exploring key value judgments made in an evaluation and the consequent boundaries of professional evaluation practice. |