Standards-Based and Responsive Evaluation

<div><p><span>The book<b> </b><span>begins with the main strategic choices an evaluator needs to make between approaches: quantitativelyby explicating criteria needs standards and performances or qualitatively by studying the activity aspirations problems and accomplishments of the participants and critical observers. </span>After reading the text students will have a better appreciation of evaluation as a process that needs to be custom-fit to the situation. <span>Throughout the book Stake presents evaluation as a series of choices for the reader:</span></p><p><span>- To remain independent or to join with program staff or stakeholders<br />- To value personal experience as evidence or to shun it as biased<br />- To aid development formatively or to assess the existing program <span>summatively</span><br />- To use issues goals gains efficiency or problem solving as the key conceptual structure<br />- To invest small or large in trying out and validating data-gathering procedures<br />- To support the standards and ethical codes of professional associations</span></p></div></span>