Evaluation: Concepts and Practice

This working paper looks at evaluation – as a documentation genre and a form of practice – as an object of inquiry with its own unique history and provenance,
a specific structure and composition and a way of acting on the world. These are respectively addressed in the paper under the headings of genealogy, morphology and performativity. Firstly, in relation to genealogy the paper traces the material and discursive history of evaluation to its roots in the ideas of scientific control and predictability and, more shallowly, the pressures of policy making. Secondly,
in relation to morphology it shows that evaluation is a construct and serves two — largely incompatible — goals: on the one hand it provides an instrument of commensurability, enabling comparison of different entities across different contexts; on the other, it provides a platform for case-specific exploration and in-depth learning. Thirdly, concerning performativity the paper discusses that evaluation has real socio-material effects which do not always - in fact rarely - overlap with those intended by the evaluators and the commissioners. The key message of this paper is that evaluation is an artefact constructed for the purposes of decision making. Rather than a representation of ‘real’ change from some neutral point of view, it is a tool to get things done. This curtails in some way the learning potential implicit in evaluation. This said, attending to the genealogy, morphology and performativity in evaluation paves a way for a more critical understanding of evaluation and more reflective use. This working paper concludes with stressing the importance of asking about the purposes of undertaking evaluation and factoring this into evaluation design. The importance of means-ends reasoning and the need for thinking conjointly about prioritising goals as well as measuring sizes are thus suggested as foundational for more reflective evaluation practice.