Book Review: Evaluation: A Systematic Approach
| Author | Colin Sharp,Darrel N Caulley |
| DOI | 10.1177/1035719X1101100109 |
| Published date | 01 March 2011 |
| Date | 01 March 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
45
BOOK REVIEWS
Book reviews
Unfortunately, this review may
be one of the last of this excellent
introductory text on evaluation.
Two of the authors (both
professors of Sociology) have died:
Dr Peter Henry Rossi (2006) and
Dr Howard E Freeman (1992)
(see ASA 2006 and Levine 1993).
If Professor Lipsey does not
persevere with further editions,
this reviewer would lament the
absence of this once useful text.
Target audience and
approach
In the Preface of the seventh
edition the authors re-affirm
their intended audience and their
approach:
Our intended readers are
students, practitioners, sponsors
of social programs, social
commentators and anyone
concerned with how to measure
the successes and failures of
attempts to improve social
conditions. (Rossi, Lipsey &
Freeman 2004, p. ix)
In providing this ‘introduction
to the field of program evaluation’
they ‘retain the ambition to
communicate the technical
knowledge and collective
experiences of practicing
evaluators to those who might
consider evaluation as a calling
and to those who need to know
what evaluation is all about’
(Rossi, Lipsey & Freeman 2004,
p. ix)
As in earlier editions, the
contents include a wide range of
evaluation and social research
techniques and examples that
are useful to the understanding
and practice of the design,
implementation and assessment
of social programs. In the
seventh edition they added: ‘an
extended treatment of outcome
measurement and monitoring,
a better exposition of impact
assessment designs, a fuller
treatment of some key statistical
issues in evaluation research, and
a more detailed description of
meta-analysis’ (Rossi et al. 2004,
p. ix).
However, their claim that: ‘We
believe that these changes bring
the volume more completely in
line with the current leading edge
of the field’ (Rossi et al. 2004,
p. ix) cannot be sustained. Even
by 2003 (when I first obtained
their seventh edition), there were
areas of theory and practice
that were developing beyond
the foundations to which Rossi
and colleagues had alluded.
Nevertheless, as will be elaborated
below, there was one area in
which they did advance, enabling
further developments in the field
thanks to their introduction.
Three details for
discussion
Here I will discuss three aspects
of their books that I have found
useful in the Australian context:
two in their earlier book that
have been at the leading edge
recently but neglected in the
seventh edition, and an area that
was new and leading edge in their
seventh edition (in that order) as
follows:
Goal attainment scaling ■
(GAS)—a method of scaling
the expected outcomes of
an activity or plan such
that qualitative statements
of a range of outcomes for
the plan can be scaled into
quantitative data (see Kiresuk,
Smith & Cardillo 1993). Even
in their fifth edition (Rossi &
Freeman, 1993, pp. 118–119)
they anticipated this useful
technique to address the
problem of individualisation
versus aggregation in program
evaluation and tailoring goal
statements and their measures
to the individual components
of the program being
evaluated. However, there
is no mention of this in the
seventh edition, despite the
burgeoning use of GAS after
Kiresuk, Smith & Cardillo
(1993) integrated 25 years of
research, theory and practice
in this valuable technique.
Internal versus external ■
evaluations—in their fifth
edition, Rossi & Freeman
(1993, pp. 153–154)
anticipated the importance
of acknowledging the
discrepancies in practice
that need closer insight and
access to processes than the
Title: Evaluation: A Systematic Approach
Authors: Peter H Rossi, Mark W Lipsey and Howard E Freeman
Publisher/year: Sage, Thousand Oaks, California, 2004, seventh edition
Extent/type: 480 pages, hardback
Price: $158/NZ$209 from Footprint Books which offers a 15% discount to AES members, phone +61 2 9997 3973,
email <info@footprint.com.au>, website <http://www.footprint.com.au> for the latest prices
ISBN: 978-0-7619-0894-4
edited by Darrel N Caulley
EJA_11_1.indb 45 6/11/11 5:37:10 PM
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