ABSTRACT
Evaluation concerns the collection of factual information about any experience, concept, process, or thing.1 The information is then presented so that some judgment can be made. The judgment assumes that standards or criteria exist by which a factor may be measured. Thus, the value of one aspect, such as an experience, may be determined on some known basis – for example, its promise of social contact or lack of interpersonal relationship. The value of each of several possible experiences may be assessed by comparison. In one instance, the intensity of relationship or social contact made possible, in another by the relative superficiality, denial, or rejection of the individual in question. How effective an experience is can be judged on the basis of information received dealing with what the individual obtained from participation. The value of any experience may be gained from its impact upon the participant – that is, by the extent to which it, in itself or in comparison with other potential experiences, concludes in specifically desired changes in those having the experience.
