Evaluation Ove Karlsson Critical Dialogue : Its Value and Meaning

Dialogue is today commonplace in evaluation discourse. It represents an ambition to involve different stakeholders in an open and power-free exchange of opinions and ideas about what is being evaluated. The aim of this article is to discuss how to manage dialogue in practice. An evaluation case is used to illustrate how the evaluator manages a dialogue in different phases of the evaluation process. In order to handle the, sometimes, difficult situation resulting from many different views on the subject, the evaluator developed various methods, some new and innovative, to make the exchange of ideas possible. The article argues that dialogue in evaluation needs to be adjustable to different situations and the needs of the participants. Introduction Evaluation may be looked upon as a locus of democratic process (Mark et al., 2000). Therefore, it is important to discuss how to conduct evaluations in a manner that allows everyone's voice to be heard in the evaluation process. One approach is to establish a dialogue among the different stakeholder groups involved in the evaluation. I see dialogue as a platform – a plaza – i.e. an open space for an exchange of ideas and a process where we examine our thoughts in order to better understand their content. When we communicate and share meanings in a dialogue we can leave 'the plaza', hopefully more enlightened and better able to make informed decisions. The purpose of this article is to illustrate, through example, a dialogical approach to the practice of stakeholder evaluation. The evaluation model used in the example is in the tradition of democratic evaluation. That is, as MacDonald (1987) put it, the evaluator recognizes value pluralism and seeks to represent the range of interests in his or her formulation of issues. The basic value is an informed citizenry, and the evaluator acts as an information broker between groups who seek knowledge of and about each other. The evaluation model is also in the tradition of deliberative democracy (House and Howe, 1999): evaluation must be inclusive, deliberative, dialogical and concerned with ideas of participation and mediated forms of public reasoning among citizens with diverse moral doctrines. In line with House and Howe, dialogue can help us to develop our thoughts and to be aware of our values. For example, an ideal in today's Western information society is that you must know what you want and be able to make quick decisions. To …