The object of one's passion: Engagement and community in democratic evaluation
| Author | Saville Kushner |
| Published date | 01 December 2002 |
| Date | 01 December 2002 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1035719X0200200206 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
16 Evaluation Journal of Australasia, Vol. 2 (new series), No. 2, December 2002
democratic
The object of one’s
passion: engagement and
community in democratic
evaluation
Saville Kushner
‘Maturity is the capacity to endure distance
from the object of one’s passions.’
– Peter Berger (1974, p. 26)
Indelible ideas
Some methodological ideas are ever-fragile; others endure. The former need persistent support
and attention; to the latter we return as a default position. We return, not always because
those methodological ideas serve us well, but because they speak to our need for stability and
order – they offer us ways of seeing the world which seem to put events reassuringly within
our control. Those fragile ideas – the ones to which we have only wavering commitment – are
the ones through which we perceive a less than predictable world and which ask us, therefore,
to take a risk, to suspend our belief in order. The question is knowing whether and when it is
appropriate to confront or to contain our fears.
What stands the test of time in the world of program evaluation is the comparative model
– the belief that comparing outcomes with objectives will provide some measure of the
wholesomeness or productivity of a program. This has something of a default position about
it, its influence is indelible – and it certainly speaks of order. It is most simply (admittedly,
crudely) represented thus:
FIGURE 1: PROGRAM EVALUATION COMPARATIVE MODEL
Inputs include program objectives. The task of the evaluation is twofold: (a) to compare
inputs with outputs to achieve a measure of accomplishment in value-added terms or to
ensure compliance with stated aims; and (b) to use measures of outcome as an indication of
the quality of program process (hence, the outcomes arrow points back to the program). The
model is elegant in its simplicity, appealing for its rationality, reasonable in asking little more
than that people do what they say they will do, and it is efficient in its economical definition
of what data count. However, we have learned through serial evaluations of social innovation
Saville Kushner is Chair
of Applied Research in
the Centre for Research
in Education and
Democracy at the
University of the West
of England, Bristol, UK.
Program (‘black box’) OutcomesInputs
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