How Far Dare an Evaluator Go Toward Saving the World?: Redux, Update, and a Reflective Practice Facilitation Tool

Abstract

In 2004, Robert Stake published a provocative article that asked: “How Far Dare an Evaluator Go Toward Saving the World?” This question raises the issue of what role evaluators’ values play in the conduct of evaluations. Following review of Stake’s premises, I present value statements from a diverse group of 40 evaluators working with philanthropic foundations. The results update and revise Stake’s list of “six advocacies common in evaluation.” The findings capture changes in evaluation language and substantive concerns over the last 15 years regarding evaluators’ values and engagement. The conclusion affirms Stake’s original overarching principle. In closing, I offer an additional concern toward saving the world not on Stake’s list or that of the evaluators sampled: global sustainability and environmental justice in the face of the global pandemic and climate emergency. This process of inquiry generated a facilitation tool for use by evaluators, presented here, to support reflective practice about evaluators’ values.

Artful Engagement with the Concept of Identity: Using Poetic Transcription to Reimagine Participant Voices

“…While poetic analysis may be used primarily to evoke an emotional response from the reader, using poetic transcription together with more commonplace modes of reporting data, such to enhance the descriptions of themes (Carr, 2003), can more deeply express the impacts and outcomes of evaluation work, especially work involving communities. Evaluators traditionally claim a dispassionate stance toward their work, viewing advocacy of specific values with disdain, despite being motivated by specific cultural and personal values in the work we do (Patton, 2021;Stake, 2004). Working at the intersection of a positivist or pragmatic paradigm within much evaluation work, perhaps the time has come for evaluators to utilize methods that help them communicate and connect with other's experiences (Rorty, 1989).…”

Patient engagement in healthcare planning and evaluation: A call for social justice

“…Thus, it is incumbent upon healthcare planners/evaluators to find ways to promote truly accessible and meaningfully patient engagement. To do so, it is critical to use an intersectional lens and unpack ways in which power is at play in healthcare planning and evaluation, and how power relations and imbalances affect interactions between patients and healthcare planners/evaluators, as well as among groups of patients 10,20 …”

“…To do so, it is critical to use an intersectional lens and unpack ways in which power is at play in healthcare planning and evaluation, and how power relations and imbalances affect interactions between patients and healthcare planners/evaluators, as well as among groups of patients. 10,20 A good first step is for healthcare planners/evaluators to engage in critical praxis. Reflecting deeply on 'their own worldviews, explor[ing] their own implicit biases about people who share and don't share their racial and ethnic [and other] identities and be[ing] mindful of how others perceive them' 21 (p13) prior to planning any patient engagement could start to set a more equitable orientation to the work.…”

The EVAL framework: Developing impact evaluation scholars

“…The specific skills to develop evaluation plans, strategies and tools builds upon the foundation coursework and active/experiential learning aspects of the EVAL model. Aligning individual values and realizing potential bias is at the core of program evaluation practice (Patton, 2021). EVAL students can investigate their personal values and learn how their values have the ability to impact evaluations.…”