Evaluation perspectives
| Author | Yoland Wadsworth |
| DOI | 10.1177/1035719X19857507 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Evaluation Perspectives |
research-article2019
Evaluation Perspectives
Evaluation Journal of Australasia
2019, Vol. 19(2) 101 –106
Evaluation perspectives
© The Author(s) 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1035719X19857507
DOI: 10.1177/1035719X19857507
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Yoland Wadsworth
In this issue our ‘Evaluation Perspectives’ interview profiles Yoland Wadsworth, a
Fellow of the AES with over 45 years in the evaluation profession as a research and
evaluation consultant, facilitator, program/project director and author. Yoland’s
impressive evaluation experience includes many wide-ranging evaluations across a
range of fields. Michael Quinn Patton has described Yoland as a ‘Path-breaker in
methodology and use of social research and evaluation in health, community and
health services’. She has authored three books: Do It Yourself Social Research,
Allen & Unwin 2011 (3rd edition, first published 1984); Everyday Evaluation on the
Run, Allen & Unwin 2011 (3rd edition, first published 1991); and Building in
Research and Evaluation: Human Inquiry for Living Systems, Allen & Unwin 2010.
How did you become involved in evaluation?
Well in a sense I think I was born one! It’s a pretty early memory but I remember
evaluating as a child the then-new Meals on Wheels service when my mother took me
along with her and another local woman as they distributed the meals to elderly neigh-
bours. I recall watching the recipients as they responded (or didn’t). Later as a teenager
I remember noticing something wrong in the school and going to let the Headmaster
know and being bewildered when he immediately concluded nothing could be done. I
wish I could recall what that had been about, but I do remember being completely puz-
zled by the reason he gave which didn’t seem logical. That habitual ‘nothing can be
done’ in the face of clear evidence continued to puzzle me – probably for 45 years so
far! And it probably puzzles most other evaluators as well! It certainly has driven my
theorising about ‘why’ and how, in a world requiring both stability and change, the
change can be ‘shut down' to preserve that existing form, even regardless of changing
need. Then I went to Monash University during an era of change. So when the univer-
sity Student Union was serving overcooked 1950s gluggy ‘filling’ food with no salads,
I, as a budding sociology student, thought I’d carry out a survey of what the students
using the Small Cafeteria actually thought about the food. Evaluation just always
seemed the reasonable thing to do!
But in a more formal sense, I suppose I came into the then-still-becoming-a-field of
evaluation in Australia in 1975 when I was asked to ‘assess and evaluate’ the pilot pack-
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Evaluation Journal of Australasia 19(2)
age of integrated community-based early childhood health, education and family ser-
vices for the Victorian State government, to see if it was ‘meeting community needs’.
What kind of evaluation are you involved with (and has
that changed over time)?
My entry point to the field of evaluation was from a classical sociology...
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