Pedagogical Principles of Evaluation: Interpreting Freire

Abstract

Pedagogy of evaluation entails examining how and what evaluation teaches. Embedded in different evaluation approaches are varying assumptions, values, premises, priorities, sense‐making processes, and principles. Elucidating and illuminating principles is fundamental to identifying and understanding a pedagogy of evaluation. Ten pedagogical principles from Paulo Freire's writings are identified and explained. Each principle is then examined for its relevance to a critical pedagogy of evaluation for evaluation theory and practice today and looking forward. Freire understood and taught us that all interactions between and among people are pedagogical, something is always being taught, conveyed, and proselytized. Extending this insight to evaluation, Freire's work reminds us that all evaluation approaches constitute a pedagogy of some kind. What any particular evaluation teaches and how it is taught varies, but evaluation is inherently and predominantly a pedagogical interaction. This leads to the concluding question: What is your pedagogy of evaluation?

The Critically Reflective Evaluator: Adult Education's Contributions to Evaluation for Social Justice

“…A more recent and equally germane New Directions for Evaluation volume picks up this thread and explores Freire's broader connections to evaluation (Patton, , this issue) through the framework of a principles‐based understanding of a “pedagogy of evaluation.” As Patton () states, “Embedded in different evaluation approaches are varying assumptions, values, premises, priorities, sense‐making processes, and principles. Elucidating and illuminating principles is fundamental to identifying and understanding a pedagogy of evaluation” (p. 49).…”

“…Elucidating and illuminating principles is fundamental to identifying and understanding a pedagogy of evaluation” (p. 49). Patton's ten Freirean principles for a critical pedagogy of evaluation highlight clear overlaps between critical reflection and evaluative thinking: Use evaluative thinking to open up, develop, and nurture critical consciousness Consciousness resides in communities of people, not just individuals Critical consciousness pedagogy must be interactive and dialogical Integrate reflection and action Value and integrate the objective and subjective Integrate thinking and emotion Critical consciousness pedagogy is co‐intentional education among those involved in whatever roles Critical consciousness is both process and outcome, both method and result, both reflection and action, both analytical and change‐oriented All pedagogy is political Critical pedagogy is fundamentally and continuously evaluative (Patton, ) …”

“…To highlight just a few, beginning with Principle 1, Patton () first makes reference to Schwandt's () discussion of critical systems heuristics and its ability to make critical boundary decisions about power‐ and values‐laden evaluation design decisions more explicit. Schwandt (this issue) elaborates on this theme, exploring boundary judgement making as a fundamentally situated, deliberative, social form of (perhaps distributed) cognition (a notion echoed in Patton's Principle 2, too).…”

“…Then, Patton () frames evaluative thinking as a form of critical consciousness fundamental to House's democratic deliberative evaluation, with its “conceptualization of evaluation dialogue involving argumentative interaction between the evaluator and stakeholders” (p. 55). Democratic deliberative evaluation “both requires critical consciousness and enhances the capacity to think critically” (Patton, , p. 55). Patton's Freirean Principle 4 touches the heart of the purpose of this chapter: the need to integrate reflection and action into true praxis.…”

“…This exploration unveils conceptual and practical overlaps between evaluative thinking, critical thinking, and critically reflective practice which can help impel evaluative thinking, and evaluation, toward more explicit engagement with specific values that favor social justice. In particular, we highlight the salience of Patton's () Freirean principles for a pedagogy of evaluation, and introduce a new framework for classifying the intersection of critical reflection and evaluation at the micro, meso, macro, and meta levels. Also, we argue that these linkages between evaluative thinking and social justice highlight new directions for the foundational training and continuing professional development of evaluation practitioners and scholars demanding a “reflexivity practice” that examines oneself and of one's paradigmatic assumptions through vigilant, constant critical reflection, investigation, and action.…”