Bob,
Disregard my query --- I have NOW seen the longer original request and
understand more of what you have asked for. [I'd previously just read Mike's
shorthand version of "getting in touch with..."]. After quick perusal, I am
so interested in your thoughts. I'd like to take a look at some of your
work, have to go back and find web sources embedded in your first email.
Catch up soon,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Kelly, PhD
Evaluation and Research
Center for Human Environments
365 Fifth Ave, 6th FL.
New York, New York 10016
212.817.1916
ekelly@gc.cuny.edu
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Williams [mailto:bobwill@actrix.co.nz]
> Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 9:25 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: CHAT and Evaluation
>
>
> Kia ora tatou,
>
> I've been lurking on xmca and the CHAT course for a few weeks
> now, observing the weft and weave of debate and discussion.
>
> I earn my living evaluating public sector programs (eg health
> and safety at work, social welfare provision, attempts by
> various welfare agencies to collaborate, employment schemes
> ....) - usually within a broad "systems" and "action
> research" approach. I'm using the word Evaluation (with a
> capital E) here to describe a field of activity that is
> predominantly funded by central or local government agencies
> to explore the performance of social programs funded out of
> the public purse. In the USA, Australia and New Zealand,
> this activity is carried out either by independent
> consultants who have no links to academic institutions, or
> are carried out by people who work within the funding agency
> or the program, or a mixture of the two. Only rarely are
> they carried out by academic institutions according to
> accepted academic norms and practice.
>
> In this context, Evaluation practice is heavily influenced by
> applied social science traditions, with a smattering of
> action research, community development and performance
> management traditions here and there (especially in Australia
> and New Zealand). There are "theories" of evaluation, and
> "theories" of the programs that are evaluated, but on the
> whole Evaluation is an intensely pragmatic field, lying
> somewhere between research, audit, organisational development
> and monitoring.
>
> I've been writing about the potential application of
> "systems" approaches to "Evaluation" for a number of years
> now. Rightly or wrongly, I'm seen as a bit of an expert in
> the area - which speaks more about where the field of
> Evaluation is than my own level of expertise. You can track
> down some of my writings and workshops on my website (see
> below) - including some rather simplistic explorations of
> CHAT. I've just written the section on systems approaches to
> inquiry for the forthcoming Encyclopaedia of Evaluation to be
> published by Sage next year. It includes a few hundred
> words on CHAT.
>
> I believe the Evaluation field has a lot to learn from CHAT
> and that CHAT has quite a bit to learn from Evaluation.
> That's hardly surprising since CHAT is inherently evaluative,
> and that much of Evaluation is essentially "historical" and
> "problem" oriented. However, at the moment it seems to me
> that most CHAT approaches are too arcane, too long winded and
> too labour intensive for any widespread transfer to the
> Evaluation field. Evaluation is too atheoretical, narrow
> and perhaps naive to be taken seriously by CHAT people. The
> kinds of "consultancy" models developed by the folks in
> Helsinki and being developed by people such as WEB Research
> here in New Zealand are promising (from an Evaluation
> perspective). But they are not there yet. There are also
> some "world view" issues between CHAT and Evaluation, but
> there are not in my view unsurmountable - I've used CHAT
> concepts in my own Evaluation practice with few problems and
> much interest by other people.
>
> As I wrote earlier, most of what CHAT practitioners do is
> evaluative. However, I have yet to come across anyone else
> working in the Evaluation field who consciously draws from
> CHAT methodologies, methods and techniques. Or vice versa.
> When I visited the Institute of Developmental Work Research
> in Helsinki last year I spoke with Jaakko Virkkunen who was
> aware of a Finnish "Evaluation" that was based on CHAT, but
> I've been unable to follow this up.
>
> The point of my post is twofold.
>
> I want to make contact with anyone else who rides the
> boundary between the CHAT field and the Evaluation field.
>
> I'm also curious to see if there are any methods and
> techniques being developed that are compatible with the
> organisational, political and managerial constraints that
> Evaluation has to work around. In Australia, New Zealand and
> North America these constraints include short time frames,
> relatively small budgets, an applied social science
> tradition, and neo-Taylorist "new public sector management"
> approaches to program delivery. It seems to me that there
> are two potential avenues for this. One, for want of a
> better word, is "CHATlite" - CHAT methodologies and methods
> that can work within the constraints of most Evaluations.
> The other is "CHATtool" - CHAT influenced tools that on their
> own don't constitute a CHAT methodology or method, but can be
> used in many Evaluation situations (eg my WEB site has a data
> analysis tool I've developed with WEB Research and the New
> Zealand Department of Labour that was influenced by CHAT
> principles, but on its own is not a CHAT methodology or method).
>
> Cheers
>
>
> Bob
>
>
>
>
> --
> BOB WILLIAMS Mobile (64) 21 254 8983
> Check out the free resources on my WEB site
> http://users.actrix.co.nz/bobwill
>
> Social change happens when a small group of people hold fast
> to an idea despite overwhelming odds. It doesn't always
> work, but staying at home never does.
> Jon Carrol "San Francisco Chronicle"
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 01 2003 - 01:00:09 PDT