Evaluation Revolutions

Abstract

The everyday practice of evaluation has continued for millennia, only recently sprouting an academic branch that became more sophisticated and transformed into an important discipline. More precisely, it developed into a family of sub-disciplines—product evaluation, program evaluation, personnel evaluation, policy analysis, etc. At the metalevel, the perception of it in most of the academic world has undergone some highly significant shifts, separated by what can fairly be described as revolutions. That sequence is what I try to describe below, starting with a description of the pre-revolutionary baseline state. The list extends from the past, through the present, and into the future, the latter including some suggestions about revolutions I think we need to kickstart. Most evaluators will continue to spend most of their time on applied evaluation in some specialty field, but I’m hoping they will help out part-time with the revolutions, at least by thinking and arguing about them. Better still if they are intrigued and challenged by the suggestions for future revolutions, and add their own experience to the revolutionary task—or to a counter- revolutionary reaction.