The Mechanisms and Outcomes of Evaluation Influence

Past literature has identified several putative precursors of use, as well as alternative forms of use. However, important shortcomings still exist in previous work on use. In particular, inadequate attention has been given to the underlying processes that may mediate the effects of evaluation on attitude and action. In essence, a key part of the theory of change for evaluation itself is missing. To help fill this gap, we describe a framework designed to capture key mechanisms through which evaluation may have its effects. The framework includes change processes that have been validated in various social science literatures. It identifies three levels of analysis (individual, interpersonal and collective), each with four kinds of processes (general influence, attitudinal, motivational and behavioral). With a more comprehensive view of the mechanisms underlying evaluation's influence, the field can move forward in relation to its understanding and facilitation of evaluation's role in the service of social betterment. Evaluation is closely tied to the types of programs, policies and practices that affect people's lives, but is itself one step removed from the direct action of these endeavors; therefore most evaluators are drawn to the topic of use. 1 Use is the link between the day-today work of evaluation, on the one hand and those activities that could actually improve the lives of program participants and society, on the other. Concern about use has generated perhaps more empirical research on evaluation than any other topic (e.g. theoretical and conceptual work on use has also occurred, leading to a variety of distinctions among types of use, such as instrumental use, conceptual use, symbolic use, process use and misuse (e.g. Originally, the evaluation literature was dominated by the idea of direct instrumental use: the notion that evaluation findings would lead to immediate and specific actions such as program continuation, expansion, revision or termination (Caracelli, 2000). Now, under the umbrella of use, evaluation theorists include a diverse range of possibilities, such as conceptual, symbolic and process use, as well as misuse, in addition to direct instrumental use, refers not to immediate decision making and action about the program or policy that was evaluated, but to more general learning that takes place as a result of evaluation. Symbolic use, an early concern in the literature, refers for example to the possibility that evaluation is used to justify a pre-existing position or simply to signify the purported rationality of an agency. More …