Are published or explicit standards used as part of the review?
1. Is there an existing structure for conducting the review? 2. Are published or explicit standards used as part of the review? 3. Are reviews scheduled at specified intervals? 4. Does the review include opinions of multiple experts? 5. Do results of the review have an impact on the status of whatever is being
evaluated?
Developers of the Expertise-Oriented Evaluation Approach and Their Contributions
It is difficult to pinpoint the origins of this approach, since it has been with us for a very long time. It was formally used in education in the 1800s, when schools be- gan to standardize college entrance requirements. Informally, it has been in use since the first time an individual to whom expertise was publicly accorded ren- dered a judgment about the quality of some endeavor—and history is mute on when that occurred. Several movements and individuals have given impetus to the various types of expertise-oriented evaluations.
Elliot Eisner, an early evaluator discussed later in this chapter, stressed the role of connoisseurship and criticism in evaluation, roles that required exper- tise in the subject matter to be evaluated. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton took on the role of “expert evaluators” in discussing and elaborating on the meaning and merits of the newly proposed Constitution in The Federalist Papers. (They were experts because they were both present and active at the Constitutional Convention that drafted the document. As such, they were also
Chapter 5 • First Approaches: Expertise and Consumer-Oriented Approaches 129
internal evaluators!) Their writings were influential at the time and are still used by jurists in the U.S. courts to interpret the meanings of the Constitution, illustrating the important actions that can come from reasoned judgments by experts about a product. Accreditation of institutions of higher education is the primary present-day application of expertise-oriented evaluations. The New England Association of Schools and Colleges, which granted the first accredita- tion and continues accreditations for colleges and universities in New England today, began in 1885 when a group of headmasters of preparatory secondary schools began meeting with presidents of colleges in New England to discuss what graduates should know to be prepared for college. Thus, more than 100 years ago, school and college leaders were talking about ways to align their curricula!