Political, Interpersonal, and Ethical Issues in Evaluation
Orienting Questions
1. Why is evaluation political? What are some of the actions an evaluator can take to work effectively in a political environment?
2. Why are communication skills important in an evaluation?
3. What are some of the key standards by which we judge a good evaluation?
4. What are some of the important ethical obligations of an evaluator?
5. What are some of the sources of bias that can affect an evaluation? How might such biases be minimized?
3
Before we begin introducing you to the different approaches to evaluation and the technical skills for actually conducting an evaluation, it is important to first discuss some fundamental issues that influence all of evaluation practice. Eval- uation is not just a methodological and technical activity. Important as method- ological skills are to good evaluation, those skills are often overshadowed by the political, interpersonal, and ethical issues that shape evaluators’ work. Many a good evaluation, unimpeachable in all technical details, has failed because of in- terpersonal insensitivity, poor communication, ethical breaches, or political naïveté. Clients have certain expectations about evaluation. Sometimes these expectations are accurate; sometimes they are not. Evaluators need to listen and observe carefully to learn those perspectives and to understand the political en- vironment in which the evaluation is taking place. Stakeholder groups have dif- ferent perspectives, different interests, and different concerns about the program
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and about the evaluation. Evaluators must be skilled in human relations and communication to work with different groups, to facilitate their communication as appropriate, and to make choices about how the evaluation meets the needs of different groups, all within a political context where different groups are struggling for different resources.
Evaluators cannot afford to content themselves with polishing their tools for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data. They must consider how to deal with pressures to supply immediate data or with the misuse of results. They must consider ways to minimize fears or misunderstandings about evaluation, the means for involving different groups in the evaluation and, then, ways to bal- ance their interests and needs. Evaluators need to think about how evaluation reports will be received by different stakeholders; whether the results of the evaluation will be suppressed, misused, or ignored; and many other interper- sonal and political issues. Ignoring these issues is self-defeating, because human, ethical, and political factors pervade every aspect of an evaluation study. It is folly to ignore them, labeling them as mere nuisances that detract evaluators from important methodological tasks. Political, ethical, and human factors are present in every program evaluation, and moving ahead without considering them will lead to a poor evaluation regardless of the technical merits of the study. Recall our discussion of the differences in evaluation and research in Chapter 1. Evaluators are working to make an impact on real people, organiza- tions, and societies. To do so, they must not only collect good data, but they must also see that intended audiences are open to using or being influenced by the data. This can be a challenging task!
In this chapter, we deal with three important, interrelated topics: (1) the polit- ical context of evaluation; (2) communication between the evaluator and others involved in the study or the program; and (3) ethical considerations and potential sources of bias in evaluation.