Evaluation Thesaurus. Second Edition

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 198 180 TM 810 149 AUTHOR Scriven, Michael TITLE Evaluation Thesaurus. SecondEdition. PUB DATE BO NOTE 157p.: This work isone of a series to come outin 1980-81. AVAILABLE FPOM Edgepress, Box 69, Pt.Reyes, CA 94956 ($7.95 plus $.85 postage per singlecopy). EDRS PRICE FF01 Plus Postage-PC Not Available from DESCRIPTORS EDRS. *Definitions: EducationalAssessment: *Evaluation: Evaluation Methods:*Thesauri ABSTRACT This thesaurus to the restricted to educational evaluation field is not evaluation or to'programevaluation, but also refers to product,personnel, and proposal .as to quality control, the evaluation, as well grading of work samples,and to all the other areas in whichdisciplined evaluation is practiced. many suagestions, procedureb,.comments, It contains criticisms, definitions and distinctions. Criteria for inclusion of an entrywere: (1) at least a few participants lnworkshops or classes requesting account was possible: it; (2)a short (3) the accountwas found useful: or (4) the author thought it shouldbe included for,theedification or More current slang and jargonhave been included thenis usual, because that is seen as a problemarea. The statistics and is lightly treated measurement area because it is believed tobe well covered in other works. Many terms from 'Alefederalistate contractprocess appear because evaluation is often:funded in this way. kept to a select few. References have been Acronyms (around 1001appear in an appendix. (FL) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRSare the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** EVALUATION THESAURUS MICHAEL SCRIVEN -,EDGEPRESS INVERNESS CALIFORNIA- 3 Copyright © 1980, Michael Scriven International Stmdard Book Number 0-913528-08-9 Second edition First printing September 1980 Library of Congress, Cataloging in Progress, Number 80-68775 No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechani- cal, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise copied for public or private use, without permission from the publisher. Edgepress Box 69, Pt. Reyes California 94956 Printed in the United States of America Single copies $6.95 + postage etc. .550 Two or more, 20% off price & postage. California tax for California order only: 6% (.420 per single copy, .340 per copy on multiple orders.) Mastercharge or Visa acceptable. Above prices good for second edition, all printings. Third edition projected late 1981. Free copies of third edition to contributors who identify significant additions and errors. 4 INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION Evaluation is a new discipline thoughan old practice. It is not just a science, though there is a point to talking about scientific evaluation by contrast with unsystematicor sub- jective evaluation. Disciplined evaluationoccurs in scholarly book reviews, the Socratic dialogs, socialcriticism and in the opinions handed down by appellate courts. Itschar- acteristics are the drive for a determination of merit, worth or value; the control of bias; the emphasis on sound logic, factual foundations and comprehensivecoverage. That it has become a substantial subject is attested to by the size of this work and of the work to which the entries herein refer. Itis a subject in its own right, not to be dissipated in sub-headings under education, health, law-enforcement and so on; one might as well argue that there isno subject of statistics, only agricultural statistics, statistics in biologyetc. Nor will it do to classify evaluation under "Social Sciences, Sundry" since evaluation far transcends the social sciences. That the Library of Congress will not recognizthe auton- omy of the discipline leads to unflattering (evaluative) con- :lusions about the bureaucracy of bibliography. But schol- ars who read the dozen journals and the scores of books, in the field, as well as the government (whose needsare more practical) are coming to recognize evaluationas a subject that requires certain skills, some knowledge and specific training. This small work may serve as a kind of miniature text- cum-reference-guide to the field. It developed (ruina 1977 pamphlet entitledEvaluation Thesaurus,and the dictionary definition of the term "thesaurus" still applies to this much larger, more detailed, and massively rewritten work: "a book containing a store of words or information about a particular field or set of concepts" (Webster III); treasury or storehouse of knowledge" (Oxford English Dictionary). We already have a couple of encyclopedias in sub-fields of evaluation (educational evaluation and program twain- atirm), and many texts provide brief glossaries. But for most consumers, the texts and larger compendia contain more than they want to know or care to purchasefor they are indeed expensive. Tb :glossaries, on the other hand, are to brief. Here then is a smaller, and cheaper guide than the encyclopedias, yet one that is more comprehensive than the glossaries and it is not restricted simply to educational evaluation or to program evaluation. It also refers to product and personnel and proposal evaluation, to quality control and the grading of work samples, and to all this other areas in which disciplined evaluation is practiced.It contains many suggestions and procedures, comments and criticisms, as well as definitions and distinctions. Where it func- tions as a dictionary, it is in the tradition of Samuel John- son's English Dictionary rather than the mighty OED; aca- demic presses would not have approved his definition of oats ("A grain, which in England is genet.; fly given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people") but you and I do. Where this serves as a reference tosgood practice and not just good usage, it is of course briefer than the special texts or encyclopedias, but it may provide agood starting-point for an instructor who wishes to focus on certain topics in considerable detail and to provide tailored readings on those, while ensuring that students have some source for untangling the rest of the complex conceptual net that cov- ers this field. Students who have sat down and read it cover to cover report on the experience as packing a semester's ,course into two days. Smaller than the other texts, yes; more judgmental be- yond doubt. But also possibly more open to change; we print short runs at Edgepress so that updating doesn't have to compete with protection of inventory. Send in your cor- rections or suggestions, and receive a free copy of the next edition. The most substantial or numerous suggestions also earn the choice of a handsome book on evaluation from our stock of spares. (At this writing, we have spares of both encyclopedias and twenty other weighty volumes.) ii 6 The criteria for inclusion ofan entry were (al at least a few participants in workshops or classes requested it, (b) a short account was possible, (c) the account was found useful, orin a few caws(d) the author thought it should be included for the edificationor amusement of professionals and/or amateurs. There is muchmore current slang and jargon in here than would usually be recognized bya re- spectable scholarly publicationbut that's exactly what gives people the most trouble. (And besides, thoughi;ome of the slang is unlovely, some of it embodies the poetry and imaginativeness of a new field far better than mole pedest- rian and technical prose.) There's not much on the solid statistics and measurement materialbecause that'svery well covered elsewhere. (But there'sa little, because participants in some inservice workshops for professionals have no statistical background and find these few definitions helpful.) There's a good deal about the federal/statecon- tract process because that's the way much of evaluation is funded (and because its jargon is especially pervasi'e and mysterious). Some references are providedbut only a few key ones, because too many just leave the readers' problem of selection unanswered. The scholar will usually findmore references in the few given; that was one criterion for selection of them. Acronyms, besidesa basic few, are in a sup- plement, to reduce clutter. The list of entries has benefited from comparison with the Encyclopedia of Educational Evaluation (eds. Anderson, BaMurphy et al., Jessey Bass, 1976); but there are over 120subst ntive entrieShere that are not in EEE. The University of San Francisco, through its support of the Evaluation Institute, deserves first place in a listing of indebtedness. In 1971-72 the U.S. Office of Education (em- bodied in John Egermeier) was kind enough to support me in developing a training progro..1 in what I then called Qualitative Educational Evaluation at the University of Cali- fornia at Berkeley, and there began the glossary from which this work grew. Two contracts with Region IX of HEW, to assist in building staff evaluation capability, have led me from giving workshops there to developing materials which can be more widely distributed, more detailed, and used for later reference more often than seminar notes; this thesaurus is part of those materials. My students and contacts in those courses and workshops, as others-. at Berkeley, irr Nova, USF, and elsewhere, have been a constant source of improvement still neededin formulating and covering this exploding and explosive held; and my colleagues and clients too. To all of these, many thanks, most especially to Jane Roth for her work on the originalEvaluation Themurug which she co-authored in 1977, and Howard Levine for many valuable suggestions on the first edition. Thanks, too. to Sienna S'Zell and Nola Lewis for handling the complex- ities of getting this into and out of our Mergenthaler photo- typesetters. They are not to blame for our minor efforts to reform punctuation e.g. by usually omitting the commas around "e.g." since it provides its own pause in the flow; and cutting down on the use of single quotes, since the U,S, and British practices are reversed.

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