ABSTRACT

Evaluation is experiencing increasing popularity with Western-leddiscourse hailing the worth of evidence-based practice, results based management, measurement, and value for money. While this orthodoxy of evaluation has been subjected to substantial critique, dissenting voices and local ways of doing have been over powered by the dominant paradigm, which privileges certain types of evidence over others. This paper examines the evident disconnects that occur when the evaluation orthodoxy is applied to evaluation of community development interventions. As such, the paper examines extreme ends of the continuum to illustrate deep-rooted epistemological divergences between the positivist, reductionist, top-down evaluation orthodoxy that is profoundly at odds with the constructivist, complex, experience-valuing, bottom up values of community development. This paper suggests that evaluation practice must deeply consider values and principles central to community development theory so evaluation can support and enhance, rather than hinder and contradict, the processes and outcomes that community development interventions strive to realize.

摘要

随着西方主导的话语对基于证据的实践、基于结果的管理、衡量和物有所值的价值赞不绝口，评估正变得越来越流行。虽然这种评价的正统观念受到了大量批评，但不同的声音和当地的做法已经被占主导地位的范式压倒了，这种范式将某些类型的证据置于其他证据之上。本文研究了将正统评价应用于社区发展干预评价时出现的明显脱节。因此，本文研究了连续统一体的极端，以说明实证主义、还原主义、自上而下的评价正统观念之间根深蒂固的认识论分歧，这与社区发展的建构主义、复杂、经验价值、自下而上的价值观大相径庭。 .