Naturalistic Evaluation

Egon Guba

• Doctorate in statistics and measurement (University of Chicago)

• Taught at:– University of Chicago (4 years)– University of Kansas City – Ohio State University– Indiana University- Bloomington (25 years)

Yvonna Lincoln

• Degrees include:– Bachelors degree in history and sociology– Master’s degree in history– Doctorate in higher education, organizational

theory, and program evaluation

• Taught at Kansas

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/BookSearch/results.asp?ATH=Econ+G.+Guba

Topic for Today

• Naturalistic Evaluation

• Constructivist Evaluation

• Experimental Design

• Effective Evaluation

• Fourth Generation Evaluation

They are all the same thing

Question: What do Constructivist believe?

Nomilists Realists

Constructivists Positivists

Post Modernists

Post Positivists

Ontology

Lincoln said Constructions are the “mental meanings, values, beliefs, and sense-making structures in which humans engage to make meaning from events, contexts, activities, and situations in their lives.”

What is Naturalistic Evaluation?

• Embraces phenomenology

• Requires full discloser from stakeholders and their “intensive participation”

“human instruments”

Experiment

Observation test

Interview survey

Methodology

Naturalistic Evaluation and Ethics

• Demands that evaluators are totally ethical– Respect all participants– Give a voice to the powerless– Understand and discover the stakeholders

values– Look to improve society

Naturalistic Evaluation and Rigor

• How does it measure up to the Joint Committee’s Standards (pg. 445):– Utility– Feasibility– Propriety– Accuracy