Written by a master writer and evaluator, this text explores the many conceptual choices an evaluator needs to make--from attention to stakeholders, to weighing ethical risks, to writing a useful report--when doing an evaluation. The book begins with the main strategic choices an evaluator needs to make between approaches: quantitatively,by explicating criteria, needs, standards, and performances, or, qualitatively, by studying the activity, aspirations, problems, and accomplishments of the participants and critical observers. Throughout the book, the author presents evaluation as a series of choices for the reader. He leads audiences to consider whether they would prefer to remain independent as evaluators or to join with a staff and/or stakeholders connected to the program; to aid in development formatively or to assess the whole program summatively; to invest minimally or largely in trying out and validating data gathering procedures; and how much to support professional associations, their standards, and ethics. After reading the book, students will have a better appreciation of evaluation as a process that needs to be custom-fit to the situation.
Professor Stake received his B.A. in Mathematics with a minor in naval science and Spanish from the University of Nebraska in 1950. He graduated with an M.A. in educational psychology in 1954 from this university. In 1958, he received his Ph.D. in psychology from Princeton University. From 1955 to 1958, he was a Psychometric Fellow at the Educational Testing Service. Then, an Associate Professor and Faculty Research Coordinator of the College of Education at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. In 1963, he arrived at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he assisted Thomas Hastings, Lee Cronbach, and Jack Easley in the creation of the new evaluation center, CIRCE, and in developing a program of research on program evaluation. He also became the Associate Director of the Statewide High School Testing Program. In 1975, he became director of CIRCE. He has been active in the program evaluation profession and has promoted an approach to evaluation methods called responsive evaluation. He took up a qualitative perspective, particularly case study methods, in order to represent the personal experience and complexity of evaluation study. He received the Lazerfeld Award from the American Evaluation Association and an honorary doctorate from the University of Uppsala.
Title: Standards-Based and Responsive Evaluation
Author: Stake, Dr. Robert E.
ISBN: 9780761926658
Binding:
Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc
Publication Date: 2003-12-11
Number of Pages: 368
Weight: 0.4764 kg
We can be grateful that Dr. Stake decided to cap his distinguished career by sharing his ideas in writing. This is a book that evaluators will want to have in their personal library. It tells us a lot about our field, highlights contrasting ways of evaluating without pitting one against the other, and manages to remind us why many of us chose this line of work in the first place. -- EVALUATION AND PROGRAM PLANNING
