Standards-Based and Responsive 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. After reading the text, students will have a better appreciation of evaluation as a process that needs to be custom-fit to the situation. Throughout the book, Stake presents evaluation as a series of choices for the reader:

- To remain independent or to join with program staff or stakeholders
- To value personal experience as evidence or to shun it as biased
- To aid development formatively or to assess the existing program summatively
- To use issues, goals, gains, efficiency, or problem solving as the key conceptual structure
- To invest small or large in trying out and validating data-gathering procedures
- To support the standards and ethical codes of professional associations