Evaluation and the democratic alternative: Problems of the past and partnerships for the future
Year: 2013

As accountability concerns direct the intent of curriculum evaluation in the 1990s, it is imperative for advocates of democratically oriented evaluations to reflect critically on the acceptance of their theories and practice by the broader educational community. This paper analyses the findings of the first stage of a more substantial study, which is directed towards the development and analysis of an evaluative approach that encompasses the democratic ideals of Robert Stake (1975) and Barry MacDonald (1976) The aim of the initial stage of the project was to review a broad range of evaluation literature and identify the past and current status of 'alternative' curriculum evaluations in Britain, the United States and Australia. The review highlights the impact of historical and cultural precedents, the inadequacy of existing methodological applications and the assumptions of recent critical and constructivist developments. These influences will be analysed in terms of their contribution to the prevailing perceptions of democratically oriented evaluations. The paper will conclude with an outline of role of 'alternative' evaluations in developing partnerships for the future. _____________________________________________________________________ In the past, democratically oriented evaluations may not necessarily have been the alternative that many of their advocates claimed them to be. In particular, proponents of alternative evaluation approaches may not have sufficiently considered the historical and cultural contexts of evaluation studies and may have been unable to respond effectively to the methodological complexity and political and ethical dimensions of a democratised evaluative process. In the future, viable democratically oriented approaches to evaluation will need to reconsider what Robert Stake (1975) and Barry MacDonald (1976) proposed; the value of all participants' perspectives, the ability to understand the workings of the curriculum and a focus on issues raised through the portrayal of multiple perspectives to inform curriculum understandings. Evaluation and the Democratic Alternative. The concept of curriculum evaluation has become enmeshed in the complexities of a changing educational and educational evaluation context. Throughout the past thirty years, mainstream, formal educational evaluation has essentially sought to obtain and provide useful information for judging decision alternatives or has been designed to assist an audience or audiences to judge and improve the worth of some educational object so that 'significant' stakeholders can improve policies and programs. The key features of such evaluations have been: their sponsorship by government, institutional and faculty leaders and educational administrators and managers; their conceptualisation of quality and quality measurement in terms of government, institutional and administrative perceptions (which stakeholders have information and how that information should be abstracted) their predication on the belief that curriculum outcomes are a suitable vehicle for curriculum investigation; and their evaluative design rationale being directed by quantifying the realisation of curriculum objectives. Since the 1970s, democratic alternatives to these mainstream approaches to evaluation have been developed, whereby evaluative information is democratically conceived, shared and utilised by all participants. The specific intent of such evaluations is the elaboration of curriculum understandings to better inform all program and curriculum participants. The key features of democratically oriented evaluations are: a sensitivity to the values of all stakeholder/participants. the conceptualisation of quality and quality measurement in terms of the social construction of curriculum quality by a range of participant perspectives; being predicated on the belief that curriculum/program activities are an important source of data to inform curriculum development; an evaluative design rationale being directed by the qualification of multi perspective curriculum issues to enhance curriculum understandings. We argue in this paper that the aspirations of those who have advocated evaluative alternatives have been unattainable and as such have offered limited evaluative options to the seekers of curriculum knowledge. The argument explores three dimensions of the past applications of 'alternative' evaluations that collectively reveal the problematic nature of their acceptance within mainstream evaluation practice. First, the argument will consider how the combined influence of scientific methodology and a focus of economic rationalism may have inhibited the evolution of an evaluation counter culture. Second, the impact of these historical and cultural influences on the development an effective and workable alternative evaluation methodology will be identified. Third, the argument will critique 'critical' and 'constructivist' adapations of the democratic evaluation and highlight how their current contexts continue to consolidate ethical and methodological dilemmas. Finally this paper will consider the current status of 'the democratic alternative' and the possibility of future partnerships to address these problems of the past. Historical and Cultural Contexts The first dimension of the 'alternative' problematic has been the lack of recognition of the historical and cultural contexts of mainstream evaluation and the inhibiting impact these contexts have had on the evolution of an alternative evaluative culture. The historical context of curriculum evaluation for the past fifty years has been bounded and driven by an essentially scientific/instrumental rationale of curriculum. The origins of traditional approaches to curriculum evaluation can be attributed to the work of Tyler (1934) in his series of lectures entitled 'Basic principles of curriculum instruction' Responding to a call for increased educational efficiency, Tyler attempted to explain a rationale for, "viewing, analysing and interpreting the curriculum and the instructional program of an educational institution" (Kemmis, 1986, p 44) The logic of Tyler's work operates on the assumption that education can be defined through a series of educational objectives, based on content and behavioural aspects. The substance of the 'objectives' model involves the appraisal of a curriculum to find out how far the objectives of an institution are being realised and a focus on student achievement, standardised criteria and comparative design. This scientifically oriented approach developed unabated for three decades and by the 1980s was recognised as the dominant evalutive methodology. The claims of ideological efficiency, procedural simplicity, and scientific validity had made the objectives approach an attractive proposition to educational decision makers, who needed 'hard' evaluative knowledge to direct educational futures. While the expansive and anti estabilishment ethos of the 1970s provided a moment of discovery for democratically oriented evaluative ideals, the attractiveness of traditional approaches was dramatically enhanced by the cultural contexts of the decades to follow. The global economic crisis of the 1980s and the subsequent reconceptualisation of education as a key player in national economic sustainability, created the perfect cultural climate for an increased dependence on 'objectives' evaluation approaches. This traditional approach appeared almost 'made to fit' these new cultural manifestations. Its tried and extensively tested and adapted methodology produced the 'hard' data required to address increasing calls for accountability and the realisation of national and institutional goals. Historically, alternative notions of curriculum evaluation have been given limited space in a society dominanted by a scientific/instrumental conception of curriculum and curriculum evaluation. The cultural impact of the economically driven 1980s and 1990s have, in many senses, created a societal perception that alternative curriculum evaluations are at best, simply unnecessary. Understandably, such historical and cultural contexts provided only limited opportunities for proponents of democratic alternatives to refine and develop their methodological practice. Ineffective and Unworkable Methodology The second dimension of the 'alternative' problematic has been the apparent inability of the proponents of alternative evaluation approaches to resolve the complexity of the democratic evaluative process. It has centred on the difficulty for democratically oriented methodology in creating valid democratic outcomes for the multiple stakeholders they seek to represent. The essence of 'the democratic alternative' was formalised at Churchhill College, Cambridge in late 1972. Here the advocates of an evaluative counter culture (including Bob Stake, Malcolm Parlett, David Hamilton, Lou Smith, David Jenkins and Barry MacDonald) drafted and endorsed the 'Cambridge Manifesto' which essentially redefined the evaluation problem, revised the role of the evaluators and reformulated evaluative strategies for information gathering, data analysis and evaluative reporting (Norris, 1990) While the theoretical and philosophical ideals of democratic and responsive approaches to educational evaluation remained seemingly clear and uncomplicated, the evolution and establishment of a suitable methodology and techniques to bring these ideals to life, within the realities of bureaucratically and hierarchically structured institutions, have often stumbled at a multitude of traditional organisational barriers. The methodology identified by democratic/responsive evaluators to achieve their pluralist ideals is generally referred to as 'case study method' In collaboration with educational researchers working towards the development of interpretative/naturalistic designs, the proponents of 'alternative' evaluations contributed significantly to the