ABSTRACT
Many of the difficulties encountered in evaluating programs can be traced to the traditions and rules which are thought to characterize "good" evaluation research. The demystification of program evaluation permits the analysis of conventional rules as obstructions to desired ends. This chapter analyzes some of the traditions considering partly responsible for problems in program evaluation. It proposes some unconventional solutions, describe the process through which they came about, and explain why they seem reasonable to us. Participant-observation can range from the extreme of participation found in the anthropologist who "goes native" to the extreme of observation found in the ethnographer who "fades into the woodwork." Communication was expected not only from leadership to membership, but evaluators were also expected to communicate matters from the grass roots upward. An analysis of evaluators' acceptance or denial of members' requests provides a picture of the fit between their efforts to define us and our emerging definitions of ourselves.
