For Immediate Release:

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

This is part of a series remembering and honoring evaluation pioneers in conjunction with Memorial Day in the USA on May 30.
My name is Sharon Rallis, a former AEA President and current editor of the American Journal of Evaluation. Carol Weiss was my advisor and teacher; she taught me how evaluation can be used to make a better world. She said, “With the information and insight that evaluation brings, organizations and societies will be better able to improve policy and programming for the well-being of all” (Weiss, 1998, p.ix). Her 11 published books and numerous journal articles shaped how we think about evaluation today.
Pioneering and enduring contributions:
Carol’s visionary contributions began in the 1960s with research on evaluation use. Her book Evaluating Action Programs (1972) pioneered utilization as a field of inquiry. She was among the first to recognize the importance of program context as well as roles evaluators play in use – and that the use might not be what was expected. She illuminated the politics of evaluation: programs are products of politics; evaluation is political; reports have political consequences; politics affect use. Carol once told me that “decision makers are human; they filter data through their beliefs, values, their agendas and ideologies. How – and whether – they use the information depends on how you communicate – can you make the information relevant? After all, you probably won’t even see them use it – there may just be a shift in the way they think.” In sum, she expanded our views of use from instrumental to incremental or enlightenment.
Carol evaluated and reflected on what and how she had evaluated, connecting theory and practice. In her classic Nothing as Practical as Good Theory, she wrote: “Grounding evaluation in theories of change takes for granted that social programs are based on explicit or implicit theories about how and why the program will work. The evaluation should surface those theories and lay then out in as fine detail as possible, identifying all the assumptions and sub-assumptions built into the program” (1995, 66-67). Her argument shapes how many of us work with the decision makers in programs we evaluate.
Finally, she had a wonderful sense of humor. Her titles include intriguing phrases like: “Treeful of Owls”; “The fairy godmother and her warts”; and “What to do until the random assigner arrives”. She filled her conversations with everyday insights and ordinary reasons to laugh. Carol humanized evaluation.
Resources:
Weiss, C.H. (1998). Evaluation: Methods for Studying Programs and Policies 2^nd Edition. Prentice Hall
Weiss, C.H. (1998). Have We Learned Anything New About the Use of Evaluation? American Journal of Evaluation,19: 21-33.
The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Memorial Week in Evaluation: Remembering and Honoring Evaluation’s Pioneers. The contributions this week are remembrances of evaluation pioneers who made enduring contributions to our field. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.