Models, Metaphors, and Definitions in Evaluation

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is threefold. The first is to explain what we mean by the term evaluation models. The title for the first edition of this book used the term models because that was the term in vogue at that time to describe approaches to program evaluation. But the word “model” obviously has other connotations that we need to clarify so that the reader does not over-interpret the phrase. The second purpose is to describe how the metaphors used in talking about education, implic- itly and explicitly, influence the model we consider when faced with the task of evaluating a program. (Metaphors also influence evaluations in other human services programs but here we confine ourselves to education.) The third purpose is to discuss how the conduct and nature of any evaluation is affected by how one defines the process of evaluation, in education or in human services more broadly. As we shall see, the many ways in which people define the process bear dramatic witness to the pluralistic nature of the field, as well as to deep epistemological differences that underlie the various models.