Reading Michael Quinn Patton

This blog posted on the Capturing Development Website offers an inviting overview and discussion of Developmental Evaluation as presented in Michael Quinn Patton's (2011) book Developmental Evaluation. Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use.

Excerpt

"A very important key feature of developmental evaluation is that it aims to contribute to social change and ‘nurture developmental, emergent, innovative, and transformative processes’. It is not so much about testing and refining a model (formative) or about a judgement (summative). It has a strong action-research component. With this, he is embarking on a rather new purpose of evaluation. Ofcourse, other types of evaluation aim to contribute to social change as well, but usually in an indirect way, exploring what works and what doesn’t. Developmental evaluation goes a step further, and aims to be part of the action, facilitating interventions that may work (or not)." 

Source: Joao Pires M (2011) Reading Michael Quinn Patton