ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the negotiation/planning stage of the evaluation process to the obtaining or empirical stage. This includes consideration of the evaluation design—managing data or evidence through the use of relevant methods or techniques. The chapter devotes issue and question development; and evaluation design: ways in which these questions can be answered through empirical enquiry. An evaluation of the Curriculum and Standards Framework (CSF) was undertaken for the Victorian Board of Studies in Australia. The CSF was a curriculum policy developed for use across all schools in the state. Numerous techniques for the analysis of data have been developed over time and have been made accessible to evaluators through sophisticated computer packages such as Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences and NVIVO. Consistent with the Emergent Realism paradigm is the desire of the conscientious evaluator to arrive as close to the truth as possible while retaining a sense of humility about the certainty of the conclusions made.
