The science of evaluation : a realist manifesto
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Bibliographic Information
The science of evaluation : a realist manifesto
SAGE, 2013
- : pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [196]-209) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Evaluation researchers are tasked with providing the evidence to guide programme building and to assess its outcomes. As such, they labour under the highest expectations - bringing independence and objectivity to policy making. They face huge challenges, given the complexity of modern interventions and the politicised backdrop to all of their investigations. They have responded with a huge portfolio of research techniques and, through their professional associations, have set up schemes to establish standards for evaluative inquiry and to accredit evaluation practitioners. A big question remains. Has this monumental effort produced a progressive, cumulative and authoritative body of knowledge that we might think of as evaluation science? This is the question addressed by Ray Pawson in this sequel to Realistic Evaluation and Evidence-based Policy. In answer, he provides a detailed blueprint for an evaluation science based on realist principles.
Table of Contents
Preface: The Armchair Methodologist and the Jobbing Researcher
PART ONE: PRECURSORS AND PRINCIPLES
Precursors: From the Library of Ray Pawson
First Principles: A Realist Diagnostic Workshop
PART TWO: THE CHALLENGE OF COMPLEXITY - DROWNING OR WAVING?
A Complexity Checklist
Contested Complexity
Informed Guesswork: The Realist Response to Complexity
PART THREE: TOWARDS EVALUATION SCIENCE
Invisible Mechanisms I: The Long Road to Behavioural Change
Invisible Mechanisms II: Clinical Interventions as Social Interventions
Synthesis as Science: The Bumpy Road to Legislative Change
Conclusion: A Mutually Monitoring, Disputatious Community of Truth Seekers
by "Nielsen BookData"