Publisher's Synopsis
One of the most divisive issues in the evaluation community hasbeen the debate over which methodologies are to be consideredadequate or commendable in addressing different evaluationquestions in different settings. One form of this debate involvedopposing camps of proponents of qualitative versus quantitativemethods. A decade ago, there was some hope that the two sides ofthis debate, referred to as the paradigm war, were learning torespect each other. More recently, however, a federal agencypriority for funding random assignment experimental studies hasreignited the debate.
This volume provides a space for a productive dialogue that, byidentifying areas of agreement but also fundamental differences,will promote a more durable working consensus on the circumstancesin which some methods are to be preferred over others. The chapterauthors and discussants make clear that there are different typesof evidence with which to inform this dialogue, including empiricalfindings of the impact of method choice on evaluation outcomes, theevidence contained in the wisdom of practice, and the results ofcritical analyses of the broader social impacts of method choice.The editors build on these contributions to suggest pragmaticpolicies for federal agencies, promoting both context-appropriatemethod choice and the importance of managing portfolios ofevaluative research that maintain desired distributions ofmethodologies.
This is the 113th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly reportseries New Directions for Evaluation, a publicationof Jossey-Bass and the American Evaluation Association.
