ABSTRACT
Collaborative working in geographic areas needs research, audit and evaluation to assess progress and inform policy. Traditional quantitative approaches to inquiry need to be complemented by 'qualitative' approaches that see relationships and processes of relationship-building. The chapter presents Egon Guba and Yvonna Lincoln's argument. Guba and Lincoln, teamed up to write Fourth Generation Evaluation, an elegant analysis of the history of evaluation in the US and UK. It shows how ideas about evaluation mirrored the development of positivist, critical theory and constructivist schools of thought. They describe three generations from the positivist and critical theory schools: generation of measurement; generation of description; and generation of judgement. Reframing audit and evaluation as fourth-generation means setting them within a framework of participatory action research. Research methods are categorised by the paradigm to which they most obviously relate. Rich insights come from a combination – for research, audit and evaluation.
