Book Review: Empowerment Evaluation Principles in Practice
| Author | Jenny Neale |
| DOI | 10.1177/1035719X0700700116 |
| Published date | 01 March 2007 |
| Date | 01 March 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK REVIEWS
Evaluation Journal of Australasia, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2007
64
Reviewed by:
Rick Cummings
Past President of AES;
Senior Lecturer, Teaching and
Learning Centre,
Murdoch University,
Email:
<r.cummings@murdoch.edu.au>
and checklists for conducting
concept mapping, and conclude
with exercises to enable the
reader to practise the activities
outlined in the chapter. The book
also contains a comprehensive
reference list as well as a list of
over 60 dissertations that used
concept mapping. As such, it
could easily be a textbook for a
short course on concept mapping
or a reference in a longer course
on evaluation methodology.
Kane and Trochim, as strong
advocates of concept mapping,
point out a number of its
strengths including the bridge it
provides between qualitative and
quantitative data collection and
analysis, the multiple outcomes
it can provide for informing
stakeholders, and the group
processes it uses to involve
stakeholders in the evaluation
process and returning to them
visual maps of key concepts and
their relationships when planning
for a program or evaluating it.
Furthermore, they see the process
as useful in a range of evaluation
activities including developing a
program logic model, developing
key evaluation questions,
developing measures and scales,
and examining patterns of
outcomes.
Given their dedication to
concept mapping over a number
of years, it isn’t surprising that
the authors do not focus on the
limitations of concept mapping.
However, readers should be
aware that the process is not
applicable in all settings and
requires a captive audience of
stakeholders, although they can
be geographically dispersed,
and a reasonably sophisticated
audience to comprehend and
work with the potentially
large number of concepts and
conceptually diffi cult statistical
analysis.
However, as demonstrated
by the long list of dissertations
provided in the book, concept
mapping is clearly applicable
to a large range of program
and policy scenarios, and
provides a well-tested approach
to conceptualising programs
and policies in a wide range
Title: Empowerment Evaluation Principles in Practice
Editors: David M Fetterman and Abraham Wandersman
Publisher: Guilford Press, New York
Publication date: 2005
Extent/type: 231 pages, paperback
Price: A$47.95 from Footprint Books which offers a 15% discount to AES members, phone (02) 9997 3973
ISBN: 1-59385-114-6
Reviews of Empowerment
Evaluation Principles in Practice
and rebuttals from the author
David M Fetterman were a
lively arena for discussion in the
American Journal of Evaluation,
vol. 26, no. 3, 2005 when this
book fi rst came out. Given that
Australasia did not feature in
Fetterman’s comments as a
region where empowerment
evaluation took place, and given
that in 2007 he is visiting this
part of the world, it is timely
to re-look at this book from an
Australasian perspective.
The back cover states that
Empowerment Evaluation
Principles in Practice is the
‘most current formulation of the
10 principles of empowerment
evaluation and the tools to put
these into practice’. It provides
an opportunity for Fetterman,
Wandersman, their students
and colleagues to write about
the work that they have been
doing in the fi eld since they
originally began writing about
empowerment evaluation (EE)
and refl ect on it. There are nine
chapters. The 10 principles as
the organising framework of
EE are outlined on the second
page plus the identifi cation of
the evaluator role as that of
‘critical friend’. The history,
evolution and distinctiveness
of EE are discussed which
gives both of the editors an
opportunity to summarise their
earlier work. Chapters 4–7
of areas of social policy. Kane
and Trochim have provided an
excellent service to program
planners and evaluators
through the production of this
comprehensive, very readable
and widely applicable text on
concept mapping.
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