By Alexey Kuzmin originally posted at Evaluation Space
One of the unique features of evaluation capacity development in our region is that we can observe the genesis and development of evaluation profession. At the same time we can see far more advance stages of evaluation development in the other parts of the world and have access to information on the history of evaluation development there. I believe that this is an incredible (and underused) opportunity for researchers.
In Russia and other Newly Independent States one of the trends on the early stages of evaluation development was differentiation of evaluation from the other disciplines. This is an important stage in the development of any new profession.
It seems like now we are entering the next stage that could be characterized by integration of evaluation into various subject areas, development of subject specific evaluation approaches (presumes specialization of evaluators) and collaboration between evaluators and subject experts.
I have just returned from the annual conference of the International Program Evaluation Network in Astana, Kazakhstan. One of the conference highlights for me was presentation of a group of psychologists working with teenagers in Moscow. They introduced themselves as non-evaluators developing evaluation approaches relevant to their professional area. My understanding of their major concern was that they work in the traditions of humanistic psychology and are worried that the “traditional” evaluation approaches will not fit their values, will not allow to measure actual progress and results of their programs and can make harm to their program participants. So, they established an interdisciplinary working group that involves psychologists, sociologists, social workers, professional evaluators, representatives of the donor agencies, practitioners working with teenagers. Today this group is very close to publishing a declaration of principles of evaluating programs aimed at children. I would describe the approach they propose as “humanistic evaluation” (rooted in humanistic psychology).
Two things seem very important to me in this initiative since they indicate a new stage of evaluation capacity development in the region:
In Russia and other Newly Independent States one of the trends on the early stages of evaluation development was differentiation of evaluation from the other disciplines. This is an important stage in the development of any new profession.
It seems like now we are entering the next stage that could be characterized by integration of evaluation into various subject areas, development of subject specific evaluation approaches (presumes specialization of evaluators) and collaboration between evaluators and subject experts.
I have just returned from the annual conference of the International Program Evaluation Network in Astana, Kazakhstan. One of the conference highlights for me was presentation of a group of psychologists working with teenagers in Moscow. They introduced themselves as non-evaluators developing evaluation approaches relevant to their professional area. My understanding of their major concern was that they work in the traditions of humanistic psychology and are worried that the “traditional” evaluation approaches will not fit their values, will not allow to measure actual progress and results of their programs and can make harm to their program participants. So, they established an interdisciplinary working group that involves psychologists, sociologists, social workers, professional evaluators, representatives of the donor agencies, practitioners working with teenagers. Today this group is very close to publishing a declaration of principles of evaluating programs aimed at children. I would describe the approach they propose as “humanistic evaluation” (rooted in humanistic psychology).
Two things seem very important to me in this initiative since they indicate a new stage of evaluation capacity development in the region:
- This is one of the first cases in our region when subject experts initiated development of evaluation approaches specific to their subject area.
- These approaches are developed in collaboration between subject experts and professional evaluators.
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