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In today's world, with its preoccupation with impact assessments
and results-based management, program evaluation is all too often
framed as an affirmation of an official narrative rather than as a
source of alternatives. The power of case study is its insistence
on opening up rather than suppressing the complexity of social
programs, on documenting multiple voices and exploring contested
viewpoints. In this way, case study resists the trend towards
evaluations that simply focus on 'what works', that reduce the
complexity of social life to a single narrative, and to
formulations that strip out most of what matters. Now more than
ever, as government policies and programs orientate to global
economic crisis and its impact on the lives of citizens and
communities, we require evaluations that resist information loss
and produce richness.
Current conventions in school evaluation focus on accountability,
control and compliance. New Zealand offers a distinctive, systemic
alternative to school self-evaluation, with developmental and
negotiated approaches ingrained throughout the education system,
from school inspection to major government schooling improvement
initiatives. In New Zealand there is no national testing, other
than a Ministry-sponsored (voluntary) formative assessment system
designed for school and teacher self-evaluation. This is a form of
professional and program evaluation where there is shared power and
responsibility between evaluators and those being evaluated.
Through a detailed national case study of New Zealand, together
with commentaries from international specialists, this volume
examines the successes and challenges of this approach to programme
evaluation and its generalizability to other educational and
professional review settings, and show how education systems can
recover a balance between an achievement agenda and a focus on
educational quality.
A comprehensive and authoritative overview of issues relating to
the evaluation of criminal justice/corrections 'interventions',
this unique reference draws on a variety of theoretical, cultural
and epistemological perspectives with authors from a range of
disciplines and countries. It begins by looking at the purpose of
evaluation within criminal justice systems as a historical and
conceptual background. Methods outlined for evaluating criminal
justice focus on educating readers about the design decisions they
may face as evaluators, enabling them to make informed decisions
when choosing designs that are not necessarily optimal. It raises
the question of who evaluation is for, and a clearly informed
discussion of the importance of the full range of stakeholders
involved in evaluation and the potential impact of participating in
evaluations on different stakeholders is presented. With insight
into successful and unsuccessful evaluation from the perspective of
those who are being evaluated, and a critical examination of the
methodological and conceptual difficulties involved in identifying
'effects', this book concludes by looking ahead to the future of
criminal justice evaluation.
In our reforming public institutions it sometimes feels as though
the very ground of social and political contracts is shifting. The
economic revolution embraced by neo-liberals and neo-conservatives
is paralleled by a governance revolution in those same institutions
which were designed to protect us from historical swings and
ideological roundabouts. Our public institutions - for the most
part the public sector and its professional groups - in the eyes of
some provided stability, while for others they were a brake on
change. Now, however, they have become conduits for political
change and reform. We live in an institutional world now dubbed the
New Public Management (NPM). In this new landscape evaluators might
have to think afresh about how to position ourselves in relation to
institutional ethics and the pursuit of social justice. In this
volume contributors give us a start in thinking through such a
repositioning, some within the values framework of NPM, others as
external observers.
This book is written for research students and their supervisors,
for 'program evaluators', and for those researchers who don't call
themselves evaluators, but whose research is evaluative. It is
aimed, this is to say, at those whose research involves judgment -
of policies, practices or organization. judgment of their value,
merit or their appropriateness. The involvement of judgment changes
the nature of any research and makes particular demands on the
researcher in terms of choice and use of method, ethics, political
relationships and even emotional capabilities. There are many
methodological text-books and models to support the researcher to
meet such challenges. This is not one of those. Rather than teach a
methodology or propose a model, this book helps you to think
methodologically - i.e. to solve methodological, political,
emotional issues as they arise, using your own judgment and your
own resources. There are no blueprints for dealing with the ethics
and the politics of evaluative research, there is only your ability
to manage complexity and unpredictability. This book supports you
in developing just that. Since this is an intellectual challenge
the book offers both theory and method combined, and is laced with
practical examples.
This book is written for research students and their supervisors,
for 'program evaluators', and for those researchers who don't call
themselves evaluators, but whose research is evaluative. It is
aimed, this is to say, at those whose research involves judgment -
of policies, practices or organization. judgment of their value,
merit or their appropriateness. The involvement of judgment changes
the nature of any research and makes particular demands on the
researcher in terms of choice and use of method, ethics, political
relationships and even emotional capabilities. There are many
methodological text-books and models to support the researcher to
meet such challenges. This is not one of those. Rather than teach a
methodology or propose a model, this book helps you to think
methodologically - i.e. to solve methodological, political,
emotional issues as they arise, using your own judgment and your
own resources. There are no blueprints for dealing with the ethics
and the politics of evaluative research, there is only your ability
to manage complexity and unpredictability. This book supports you
in developing just that. Since this is an intellectual challenge
the book offers both theory and method combined, and is laced with
practical examples.
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