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AbstractThere is increasing evaluative interest in assessing not just the current effectiveness of programs but also their likely sustainability. Assessing the likely sustainability of a program, however, requires methodological judgments about the future and about the influences of many complex political, economic, and social factors, which themselves are likely to change. While strong confidence in these types of prospective judgments may continue to be elusive, careful consideration of some major factors—including the cyclical character of certain public interest values and the predictable influence of special interest groups—should be helpful in improving the current ability of evaluation practice to address sustainability issues. This chapter ends with a checklist of seventeen questions to help focus attention on relevant, accessible, but often ignored, program or policy areas affecting sustainability.

AbstractChelimsky shares her own stories about her evaluation life and comments on connections she sees between her extraprofessional and professional evaluation life experiences. These stories come from a paper she prepared for the American Evaluation Association 2013 symposium session, based in part on interviews conducted by David Williams. She mentions the influence her parents had on her values and her evaluation life. She elaborates on the influence she feels that her career in piano performance and her experiences living in Paris, France had on her evolving extraprofessional evaluation life and her professional evaluation experiences in her later career.

AbstractThe author argues that valuing is often about methodology, or questions about how to measure the value of a public program or policy, including how we measure the factual underpinnings of programs and how we synthesize information about issues relevant to public programs and policies. The organizational context is discussed as an important determinant of what methods are used, and that these decisions have become increasingly influenced by a single narrative—a narrative that sees increasing numbers of government programs and policies embodying a single idea, or positing a simple, one‐on‐one cause‐and‐effect relationship, both of which are established, not by evidence, but rather by suppressing existing evidence that is inconvenient to the particular idea or relationship being advanced. The implications of this single narrative on methodology are discussed and ways forward described. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc., and the American Evaluation Association.

AbstractMost discussions of evaluation policy focus on the substance and process of doing evaluations. However, doing evaluations in government requires careful consideration not only of evaluation but also of the larger political structure into which it is expected to fit. I argue in this chapter that success for evaluation in government depends as much on the political context within which evaluation operates as it does on the merits of the evaluation process itself. For convenience, I divide the contextual governmental pressures on evaluation into three kinds: those stemming from the overarching structure of our democracy, those stemming from the bureaucratic climate of a particular agency, and those stemming from the dominant professional culture within that agency. I then examine how those three kinds of pressures have, in my experience, affected the independence, credibility, and ethical position of the evaluation units and evaluators concerned. Finally, I offer some suggestions for evaluation policy in the hope of avoiding a repetition of past evaluative failures that resulted either from unawareness of political relationships in government or from the inability of small evaluation units to protect their work in the face of much more powerful political forces. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

AbstractA critical historical review of the tensions in American governance places the method choice debate in a broader perspective. This chapter reviews the factors that influence the evaluation questions posed to evaluators and, in turn, the methods choices that stem from it. Political and professional pressures on the evaluators also influence methods choice. Flexibility in methods is considered essential for the evaluator to design a study that considers both the context and the specifics of the question.

AbstractWhile there is wide consensus that evaluation and auditing are moving closer together, there is disagreement on the width of the remaining gap. Further integration has both advantages and disadvantages.

AbstractThe president of the American Evaluation Association takes stock of progress in the application of evaluation findings to decision making and in the development of evaluation methods. She emphasizes the importance of credibility—through eclecticism in method and clarity of presentation—and of realism, sensitivity, and independence in relationships with decision makers.

AbstractAs useful as they are, the American Evaluation Association Guiding Principles fail to appreciate the precarious position of the evaluator who speaks truth to power, and their near total focus on elaborating further responsibilities for the evaluator may increase the evaluator's vulnerability to partisan attack.

Speeches and Addresses is an occasional feature, not in article format, in which presentations at conferences and other public gatherings are seen as likely to be of interest to a wider audience. Sometimes these speeches and addresses will undoubtedly be contentious, in which case responses and counter-arguments are to be expected and are welcome. Contributions to this section are intended to make accessible relevant material for academic, policy-making and practitioner audiences. The following address is by Eleanor Chelimsky, who at the time it was given was Assistant Comptroller General for Program Evaluation and Methodology in the United States General Accounting Office. This was a 'Keynote Address' at the National Conference on Research Synthesis sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation, Washington DC, in June 1994.

AbstractEvaluation specialists and auditors are working side by side to improve program performance. Auditors concentrate on comparing a condition against a criterion; evaluators concentrate on what has occurred, estimating what would have occurred without the program and comparing the two situations to determine program effects.

AbstractGeneral Accounting Office studies have documented a serious decline in executive branch evaluation capacity, as reflected in declining budget and staff resources and a narrowing of the methods employed and issues examined. However, increasing interest by the Office of Management and Budget and recent steps taken to encourage program evaluation should lead to its broader application and more frequent use.