Connelly, S. orcid.org/0000-0003-1758-0366 and Vanderhoven, D. (2018) The craft of evaluative practice: Negotiating legitimate methodologies within complex interventions. Evaluation, 24 (4). pp. 419-437. ISSN 1356-3890
Abstract
Evaluations of complex interventions are likely to encounter tensions between different methodological principles, and between the inherent causal rationality of evaluation and the messy complexity of real institutional contexts. Conceptualizing evaluation as producing putatively authoritative evidence, we show how ‘legitimacy’ is a useful concept for unpacking evaluation design in practice. A case study of service integration shows how different approaches may have unpredictable levels of legitimacy, based in contrasting assessments of their methodological acceptability and actual utility. Through showing how practitioners resolved the tensions, we suggest that crafting a patchwork of different methodologies may be legitimate and effective, and can be seen as underpinned by its own pragmatic rationality. However, we also conclude that the explanatory power of theory-driven evaluation can be embedded in such an approach, both in elements of the patchwork and as an overarching guiding principle for the crafting process.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Author(s). This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Evaluation. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Keywords: | evaluation practice; legitimacy; pragmatism; service integration; theory-driven evaluation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Urban Studies & Planning (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 20 Jun 2018 11:54 |
Last Modified: | 20 Apr 2021 10:08 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/1356389018794519 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:132188 |
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