ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies similarities and differences between research and evaluation, and, in doing so, sets out connections between evaluation, research, politics and policy making. It indicates that whilst both evaluation and research have much in common, for example, in methodologies and methods, there are several fundamental differences between them, such as origins and purposes, audiences and release of findings, stance of the researcher, status, focus, agenda, participants, scope, relevance (and to whom), time frames, use of results, decision making, data types, ownership of data and findings, politics, powers and control, the role of theory, and reporting. The chapter argues that useful evaluation identifies conditions and contingencies affecting the success of policies and interventions. Evaluations, it is argued, are frequently more ‘conformative’ than research, due to the politics at work in evaluation studies, and this raises issues of value neutrality.
