Editorial
| DOI | 10.1177/1035719X18785040 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Author | Lyn Alderman |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1035719X18785040
Evaluation Journal of Australasia
2018, Vol. 18(2) 75 –77
© The Author(s) 2018
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1035719X18785040
journals.sagepub.com/home/evj
Editorial
Lyn Alderman
I invite all evaluators, commissioners of evaluation, and policy decision-makers to read
this issue of the Evaluation Journal of Australasia as a professional development activity
to enhance and extend your practice. The articles published in this issue cover a wide
range of evaluation methodologies which stand to remind us all that evaluation is a broad
discipline and evaluators, commissioners, and decision-makers need to understand sev-
eral methodologies. The methodologies discussed in this issue include participatory
evaluation, realist evaluation, developmental evaluation, action research, quality
improvement, meta-evaluations, evaluation design, and principle evaluation. Whether
you adopt and apply these methodologies, or not, is not the issue. What is important is
that you understand that evaluators have a toolkit of methodologies ready for use.
Knowing when and where to apply different evaluation methodologies is key to how we
demonstrate the depth and understanding of our disciplinary knowledge of evaluation.
This issue also reminds us that context matters, and you will find that the authors
have been very deliberate in their choice of methodologies depending on the individ-
ual setting in which they find themselves. In a previous role as an internal evaluator at
an Australian university for 10 years, I was reminded of the value of context and the
individuality of evaluation on a regular basis. I will share with you one example from
this period that demonstrates how individualistic evaluation can be. At this university,
I was the lead on a widespread organizational change project to develop a new evalu-
ation of teaching framework. To demonstrate how each person approaches evaluation
through a personal, individual lens, I invited a group of over 100 academic staff to
share how they approached the evaluation of their teaching. This activity was sup-
ported by 10 suggested starting points derived from the literature. It will be no surprise
to evaluators that each academic staff member identified a starting point and next steps
that were different to those of their peers. In the debriefing session that followed this
activity, many academic staff acknowledged that to undertake this activity their first
step was to identify which role they were adopting (subject coordinator, lecturer, or
tutor). Then they further outlined their approach by saying “it depends,” depends on
which level (postgraduate or undergraduate), class size (small or large), and mode of
teaching (online or face-to-face). In other words, it just depends on the context.
With diverse methodologies and the importance of context in mind, I would now
invite you to step into this issue and read the four articles and book review. A brief
outline of these is provided below.
785040EVJ0010.1177/1035719X18785040Evaluation Journal of AustralasiaAlderman
editorial2018
To continue reading
Request your trial