Evaluating

A volume in Evaluation and SocietySeries Editors, Jennifer C. Greene, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaignand Stewart I. Donaldson, Claremont Graduate UniversityIn this book, Ernie House reframes how we think about evaluation by reconsidering three keyconcepts of values, biases, and practical wisdom. The first part of the book reconstructs coreevaluation concepts, with a focus on the origins of our values and biases. The second partexplores how we handle values and biases in practice, and the third shows how we learn practicalwisdom and use it in evaluations.Value is the central concept in this volume, yet it’s a fuzzy concept. In Part I, Ernie clarifies theconcept of value by addressing basic questions: What are values? Where do they come from?Why do we have them? Why is our conception so confused? How do we handle values in evaluations?In Part II, another central concept is added, that of biases. Prominent evaluation frameworkshave focused on biases, including Campbell and Stanley’s (1963) framework for validatingcausal inferences and Scriven’s (1972) conception of objectivity, which is achieved by correcting for biases in general. In addition,research on thought processes has made progress by focusing on cognitive biases (Kahneman, 2011). Even so, through a case example,Ernie demonstrates that the concept of biases is under-appreciated and not well engaged in evaluation practice.The third important concept, featured in Part III, is practical wisdom, which is the knowledge that evaluators acquire through experience.Practical wisdom informs what we do, possibly as much as theory. Experienced evaluators often conduct evaluations in similarways, regardless of their theory, because practical wisdom determines much of what they do. Ernie provides concrete examples of practicalwisdom and how we employ it. Throughout the book, he draws on the empirical research on thinking processes, especially Kahneman’sThinking Fast and Slow (2011).This book will be of interest and relevance to all evaluation scholars and practitioners, as it thoughtfully engages core constructs of thefield. The book can also well serve as a supplementary text in multiple evaluation courses,as it offers valuable conceptual and practical perspectives on our craft.