Evaluation Theory and Metatheory

Abstract

What is evaluation? Synthesizing what the dictionaries and common usage tell us, it is the process of determining the merit, worth, or significance of things (near-synonyms are quality/value/importance). Reports on the results of this process are called evaluations if complex, evaluative claims if simple sentences, and we here use the term evaluand for whatever it is that is evaluated (optionally, we use evaluee to indicate that an evaluand is a person).