e-valuation

There are a plethora of strategies for collecting data from children and youth that provide evidence for evaluation of services and programs. (See a previous post on my new book that focuses on data collection strategies that ensue from a perspective that sees youth as culturally embedded meaning-making social actors.) Often, the focus is psychological and individual–that is, focusing on psychological states and attributes and judging changes in those based on some sort of intervention. A good example of this is a report just released by Child Trends. This report provides an instrument for measuring adolescent’s self-concept. This is standard psychometric fare and could be useful, however, think about the viable alternatives. What if you asked youth to draw a self-portrait, or write a biographical sketch, or create a photo-essay that reflects how they think about themselves, and well you get the idea. Self-concept is, as the report suggests, and important consideration in youth oriented programming and thus in evaluation. So important, that we should be cautious about using simplistic indicators, just because they are there.

This book, to be released in October, focuses on research rather than evaluation but many of the issues and strategies are relevant especially for participatory approaches to evaluation of programs and services for children. The book is published by Guilford Press.

Public Good and Private Interest in Educational Evaluation

Cite as:
Mathison, S. (2009). Public Good and Private Interest in Educational Evaluation. In W. Ayers (Ed.). Handbook of social justice in education. New York: Routledge, pp. 5-14.

Edited by S. Mathison & E. W. Ross, published by Teachers College Press.