ABSTRACT
Today’s evaluation professionals are facing the same challenges and theoretical conundrums that evaluators have been facing since the beginnings of the profession: What should be paid attention to in an evaluation-processes, outcomes, or both? What data should be gathered, and how? What methods of analysis should be used? What claims do evaluators want ultimately to be able to make, and what constitutes evidence of those claims? Who should judge the value of the program? And finally, what role should stakeholders play, and how should results be communicated to them? How evaluators answer these questions depends upon a multitude of factors, including program goals, client needs and the evaluator’s own philosophical outlook. Any given evaluation can take many different paths, and understanding those paths along with their accompanying trade-offs is an important component of modern evaluation practice.
