Framing participatory evaluation

This 1998 paper by J. Bradley Cousins and Elizabeth Whitmore presents two main streams of participatory evaluation, practical participatory evaluation and transformative participatory evaluation, and compares them with regard to a number of dimensions such as control, level, and range of participation.

These streams are then situated in view of other forms of collaborative evaluations.

Excerpt

"Forms and applications of collaborative research and inquiry are emerging at an astounding pace. For example, a bibliography of published works on participatory research in the health-promotion sector listed close to five hundred titles (Green and others, 1995), with some items dating back as early as the late 1940s. The vast majority, however, have surfaced since the mid-1970s. In the evaluation field, one label that is being used with increasing frequency as a descriptor of collaborative work is participatory evaluation (PE). The term, however, is used quite differently by different people. For some it implies a practical approach to broadening decision making and problem solving through systematic inquiry; for others, reallocating power in the production of knowledge and promoting social change are the root issues.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the meanings of PE through the identification and explication of key conceptual dimensions. We are persuaded of the existence of two principal streams of participatory evaluation, streams that loosely correspond to pragmatic and emancipatory functions. After describing these streams, we present a framework for differentiating among forms of collaborative inquiry and apply it as a way to (1) compare the two streams of participatory evaluation and (2) situate them among other forms of collaborative evaluation and collaborative inquiry We conclude with a set of questions confronted by those with an interest in participatory evaluation." (Cousins & Whitmore 1998, p.5)