Evaluation Lives

I wrote the following as a kind of self-interview as I was exploring the differences in my evaluation life as a professional evaluator, as a teacher, and as a family member. I wanted to think about how my views on values, evaluands, stakeholders, etc vary across those settings. I also wanted to explore how these issues might be of importance in understanding others' evaluation lives. These notes were included in Gong's materials on my evaluation life. DDW Fieldnotes--Three Categories of My Evaluation Life Started 9/30/2011 and completed 10/14/2011 The thing I want to dictate is my thoughts about my self-evaluation or how I evaluate. I do more than self-evaluation although that's one of the things I do evaluate. So, I think one of the 1st things I need to talk about is to distinguish between how I think about evaluation as a field, what I'm trying to learn and say about it as a researcher and as an evaluation professional, compared to how I evaluate in my...

One of the central conclusions I've been reaching through all the interviews I've conducted is: We all have values that play important roles in all our evaluations whether or not we acknowledge them. Perhaps being aware of our own values and the values of others involved in our evaluation experiences could help us use them more wisely or at least know that we're having to deal with ours and theirs one way or another? The following quotes from Sue Gong's manuscript illustrates this from my evaluation life. DDW’s commitment to family flows through all his papers.  He brings his interviews back to family life as a core value.  This section includes his personal essays on First Memories and this theological foundations for the values he holds most important.  His thoughts on family are filled with deep commitment, puzzlement, quiet tensions, and ongoing connections. First Memories Transcriptionist: Marie Stirk Speaker: David Williams December 14, 2011 [0...