Realistic Evaluation

by Ray Pawson, Nick Tilley

Authors Ray Pawson and Nick Tilley show how program evaluation needs to be and can be bettered. The authors present a profound and highly readable critique of current evaluation practice introducing a manifesto- and handbook-fresh approach. This volume is devoted to articulating a new evaluation paradigm, which promises greater validity and utility for evaluation as a whole. Realistic Evaluation reflects the paradigmÆs foundation in scientific realist philosophy and its commitment to the idea that programs deal with real problems rather than mere social constructions. Its primary intention is to inform realistic developments in policyùmaking that benefit program participants and the public. Pawson and Tilley argue persuasively and passionately that scientific evaluation requires a careful blend of theory and method, quality and quantity, ambition and realism. The book offers a complete blueprint for evaluation activities, covering design to data collection and analysis to the accumulation of findings across programs and onto the realization of research into policy. Practical examples are used throughout this powerful volume and are grounded in the major fields of program evaluation.
Realistic Evaluation is essential reading for all those involved in the evaluation process, especially researchers, scholars, and students in sociology, social policy, criminology, health, and education.

Genres: Academic, Realistic Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 23, 1997

Reviews

[Tavis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for diploma of policy and program evaluation. They summarize realistic evaluation in one (run-on) sentence:

The perspective begins with a theory of causal explanation based on generative principles which supposes that regularities in the patterning of social activities are brought about by the underlying mechanism constituted by people's reasoning and the resources they are able to summon in a particular context, which gives research the task of testing theories of how program outcomes are generated by specific mechanisms and contexts, a task which involves making inter- and intra-program comparisons in order to see which context-mechanism-outcome configurations are efficacious, which thus sees programming as an attempt to embody knowledge which has thus identified what works for whom in what circumstances, knowledge of which accumulates over successive trials of a program and from other forms of empirical research, providing policy makers with families of theories specifying typologies of successful context-mechanism-outcome combinations, knowledge of which is promulgated by a teaching and learning process in which the stakeholders' fragmentary expertise is marshalled by the researcher.