ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the development of evaluation research and highlights the key methodological issues winch concern contemporary research. It argues that many of the issues in evaluation research are influenced as much, if not more, by political as they are by methodological considerations. There is also a distinction which should be made between evaluation of public policy and evaluation of public programmes. Programmes tend to be the result of policy and, there are different ways of evaluating each. Those evaluating public policy often find that a significant part of their role is in educating policy makers on the limitation of both their programme and what can be expected from a programme of evaluation research. However, such evaluations are often to do with examining costs of a public service frequently in terms of a single criterion: value for money. Such 'evaluations' often focus almost exclusively upon achieving economy savings without exploring how, or even whether the service works.
