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Collaborative Approaches to Evaluation
Principles in Use
Edited By
J. Bradley Cousins
University of Ottawa
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cousins, J. Bradley, editor.
Title: Collaborative approaches to evaluation : principles in use / edited by J. Bradley Cousins.
Description: Los Angeles : SAGE, 2020. | Series: Evaluation in practice series ; 3 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019003137 | ISBN 9781544344645 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Educational evaluation. | Health services administration—Evaluation | Community development—Evaluation. | Participatory monitoring and evaluation (Project management)
Classification: LCC LB2822.75 .C63 2020 | DDC 371.14/4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019003137
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Volume Editors’ Introduction
One of the challenges faced by evaluators is that professional evaluation is complex work that looks deceptively simple. The general public has had ample opportunity to engage in informal evaluation practice. These experiences include, for example, using Amazon reviews to decide which new toaster to buy, evaluating classroom teaching drawing from both the public discourse and our own personal experiences in school, making decisions about which policies to support at the polls based on arguments from public intellectuals, and analyses of the likely outcomes from trusted sources, etcetera. In short, everyone has had some type of experience with informal evaluation, which is one of the reasons why many in our field claim that evaluation is an ancient practice, but a new discipline (Mathison, 2005; Scriven, 1991). An argument for the complexity of professional evaluation therefore requires an understanding of what differentiates informal evaluation practice the public engages in on a daily basis from the work that occurs in formal evaluation studies.
In an effort to demarcate the boundaries of professional evaluation and describe that work, for the past 60 years or so, academics and practitioner-academics have focused on the demands of evaluation practice, arguing that professional evaluation requires a great deal of expert knowledge that is specific to the work that evaluators do (Schwandt, 2015). We see this, for example, in the evaluation theories and approaches that have proliferated, which are arguments about what the work of professional evaluators ought to look like. We also see this in studies of evaluation education in formal and informal settings, which are arguments about how evaluators are or ought to be trained to carry out formal evaluation studies. More recently, we see this in the current drafts of evaluator competencies or capabilities documents, all of which have a section specifically devoted to what makes evaluators distinct as practicing professionals (see also, American Evaluation Association, 2017; United Nations Evaluation Group, 2016). These efforts have resulted in a large body of work meant to establish and inform the theoretical, technical, and practical aspects of evaluation practice.
At the same time, as noted in the editors’ introduction for other volumes in this series, there is a need for additional resources that fill a gap between academic publications and general textbooks. The Evaluation in Practice series was born out of a recognition that there are core topics in evaluation, which are fundamental to the work of evaluators, but that have not yet received the focus they deserve. Instead, these topics are often treated as a subheading or a subtheme situated within a larger conversation. Professional practice is at the heart of this series.
In Collaborative Approaches to Evaluation: Principles in Use, the third volume in this series, J. Bradley Cousins and colleagues have presented a rich, empirically derived description of how the conceptual, technical, and
