Hi again, this is Burt Perrin. I am blessed to live in one of the world’s largely unknown, and spectacularly beautiful spots, the foothills of the Cévennes mountains in France, not far from the Mediterranean. Every turn on almost any road brings another gorgeous, and often quite different, view.
Sometimes it is helpful to be very precise. But, in other cases, this could be irrelevant at best, and quite likely misleading. And destroy, rather than enhance, the credibility of your evaluation – and of you. Hi, I’m Burt Perrin, and I’d like to discuss what considerations such as these mean for evaluation practice.
If one is undergoing brain surgery, one would hope that this would be done with precision based upon established knowledge about how this should be done. But one can be no more precise than the underlying data permit. Yet attempting this is where too many evaluations go wrong.
Hi, I’m Burt Perrin, and I’d like you think about bureaucracy – its strengths, weaknesses, and what this means for evaluation.
Bureaucracy is complex. It is essential to democracy – while at the same time presenting many challenges. Evaluation has the potential to aid bureaucracies in being more responsive and effective – but also with the potential to acerbate the situation.
Hi, I’m Burt Perrin and I’d like you to think about how people really react to evidence. In particular, I will highlight the backfire effect that refers to the reality that when facts are presented that show that one’s cherished beliefs are wrong, instead of people changing these (incorrect) beliefs, they become even stronger. This has profound implications for evaluation, with the predominant view still that the role of evaluation is to produce evidence.
Hi! I am Martha McGuire, a credentialed independent evaluator who has been working with a great group of people from around the world: Burt Perrin, Soma De Silva, Pablo Rodriquez-Bilella, Serge Eric Yakeu, Rochelle Zorzi, Ramon Crespo, Dayna Albert, Eric McGraw and Scott Bayley. We have been gathering stories about evaluations that make a difference. …
