Thomas A Schwandt
Biographic Data
| ID | 108134 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thomas A Schwandt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thomas A |
| FAMILY NAME | Schwandt |
| SIGNATURE | SCHWANDT T A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9575-3499 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 254 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 47 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Post-normal evaluation
Evaluation evolves, responding to developments in the technical, social, and political environments in which it unfolds as well as influencing how those contexts are to be understood and assessed. Evaluation has typically been understood as a reliable means of providing some assurance in the appraisal of the value of social interventions, but has increasingly been seen as having to address a variety of uncertainties and risks not simply in those …
Acting together in determining value: A professional ethical responsibility of evaluators
What ethics means in the field of evaluation is largely confined to matters of face-to-face interaction of professionals with those with whom professionals work; what is commonly referred to as professional ethics. Less attention is given to the normative characteristics that are unique to evaluation professionalism. This essay focuses on the normative political characteristics of professional ethics in evaluation; that is, how the profession oug…
Professionalization, Ethics, and Fidelity to an Evaluation Ethos
Current discussion of the professionalization of the practice of evaluation is focused on matters of competencies and credentialing and largely overlooks several significant issues. These include conflating professionalizing the practice with promoting the value of evaluation as a social good, assuming there is widespread agreement on what the terms profession and professional mean, and not considering how processes of professionalization are aff…
The Sage Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry
Objectivity
In everyday life we worry about objectivity. We hear things like: “that judge wasn't very objective,” “he is speaking from his own prejudices,” “that was a very biased comment,” and so on. If we analyze these ways of speaking, we realize several different uses of the term objectivity . It can refer to a property or quality of a claim : A claim or statement is objective if it is supported with reasons and evidence (or warrantable, supportable), an…
Reconstructing professional ethics and responsibility: Implications of critical systems thinking
Historians and sociologists remind us that it is disingenuous to ignore the fact that despite differences in research practices as well as the degree of scientization and compartmentalization of the social sciences between the United States and Europe there have been continuous communications between Europeans and Americans over their meaning, purpose, and methods (Mancias, 1987; Wagner et al., 1991). A similar observation about the field of eval…
Auditing
The notion of auditing is associated with social science methodology and with social theory. Generally defined, auditing is a procedure whereby an independent third party systematically examines the evidence of adherence of some practice to a set of norms or standards for that practice and issues a professional opinion. Thus, for example, financial auditors examine a corporation's financial statements against a set of standards for generally acce…
International Perspectives on Evaluation
On the Mutually Informing Relationship Between Practice and Theory in Evaluation
The relationship between theory and practice, or between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge, is not a simple one, and rarely is it the case that theory is 'applied' to practice. This paper aims to clarify the relationship by briefly discussing the nature of practical problems and the role that theoretical knowledge plays in addressing those problems
Quality, Standards and Accountability: An Uneasy Alliance
Notions of quality, standards and accountability are ever-present in many societies around the world and, arguably, we would be hard pressed to journey through life without appeals of one kind or another to these ideas. Our everyday interactions with people and things reflect the fact that standards of various kinds abound, from the relatively uncontroversial engineering properties of materials we rely on every time we drive across a bridge or us…
Remembering my Teacher
In Memoriam: Egon Guba (1924—2008)
Educating for Intelligent Belief in Evaluation
We are facing a rather worrying brew of developments affecting practical intellectual life in modern society and the very well-being of society itself. These developments threaten to degrade the central role that the cognitive endeavor, known as reasoned evaluative criticism, plays in the achievement, maintenance, and enhancement of the good society. In this climate, we cannot simply teach about the ways and means of doing evaluation; we must als…
On learning to be a scholar: A tribute to my teacher
A Tribute to My Teacher
The Sage Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry
Conventions Readers' Guide Preface About the Author A Note on Teaching and Learning Qualitative Inquiry List of Terms
Judging interpretations: But is it rigorous? trustworthiness and authenticity in naturalistic evaluation
This chapter situates Guba and Lincoln's chapter within the broad philosophical debate about the justifiability of interpretations. The emergence of a new paradigm of inquiry (naturalistic) has, unsurprisingly enough, led to a demand for rigorous criteria that meet traditional standards of inquiry. Two sets are suggested, one of which, the “trustworthiness” criteria, parallels conventional criteria, while the second, “ authenticity” criteria, is …
The Sage dictionary of qualitative inquiry
Intended as a guide to the terms and phrases that partially shape the origins, purpose, logic, meaning, and methods of the practices known as qualitative inquiry, this edition has 70 additional terms as well as a Readers Guide. References have been updated and several terms and phrases have been expanded and reorganised
Objectivity
In everyday life we worry about objectivity. We hear things like: “that judge wasn't very objective”; “he is speaking from his own prejudices”; “that was a very biased comment,” and so on. If we analyze these ways of speaking, we realize several different uses of the term objectivity . It can refer to a property or quality of a claim : a claim or statement is objective if it is supported with reasons and evidence (or warrantable, supportable), an…
Epistemology
The Greek words for knowledge and explanation are episteme and logos , respectively. Epistemology is the study of the nature (theory) of knowledge and justification. Epistemology is the kind of philosophy (or the primary role assigned to philosophy) valued in the scientific view of the world. In such a world, significant emphasis is placed on providing evidence for our claims to know, and philosophy has the task of examining the logic and methods…
Cultural Anthropology
Critical Social Science
Auditing
The notion of auditing is associated with social science methodology and with social theory. Generally defined, auditing is a procedure whereby an independent third party systematically examines the evidence of adherence of some practice to a set of norms or standards for that practice and issues a professional opinion. Thus, for example, financial auditors examine a corporation's financial statements against a set of standards for generally acce…
When Evaluation Meets the ‘Rough Ground’ in Communities
Based on experiences from two evaluation projects, the two partners in the following dialogue discuss the meaning of ‘resistance’ to evaluation, or more specifically, resistance to evaluation touching upon values that are central in some communities. Step by step, the dialogue identifies a tension between evaluation as a modernist undertaking and the traditional values of these communities. Through the dialogue about this tension, the ‘rough grou…
Opposition redirected
The discursive arena known as qualitative inquiry initially took shape in opposition to the epistemology and politics associated with philosophies of logical positivism and empiricism and the doctrine of value‐free science. An identity of resistance and antagonism continues to characterize many who identify with this arena of activity. This paper suggests that perhaps the energy devoted to maintaining this oppositional stance might be better redi…
Farewell to Criteriology
Criteriology is the quest for permanent or stable criteria of rationality founded in the desire for objectivism and the belief that we must somehow transcend the limitations to knowing that are the inevitable consequence of our sociotemporal perspective as knowers. The project of criteriology has, in turn, shaped our way of thinking about the epistemology of social inquiry. This article offers a way of redefining social inquiry without recourse t…
On Understanding Understanding
The phenomenon of understanding lies at the heart of the qualitative inquiry enterprise. Drawing on the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, this article discusses the following four conditions under which understanding unfolds: (a) the difference between knowing and understanding; (b) understanding as learning rather than reading; (c) understanding as relational and hence requiring openness, dialogue, and listening; and (d) understanding as …
Recapturing Moral Discourse in Evaluation
Theory and practice in evaluation in particular and in applied social science in general are principally focused on methodological issues and on instrumental conceptions of knowledge use while relegating questions about morals and values to the periphery. Drawing on recent writing in social and political philosophy, particularly the critique of the liberal democratic tradition, the author examines liberalist beliefs and their consequences for con…
The Centrality of Practice to Evaluation
There is a strong tendency for evidence-based approaches to social practices to view these practices as imperfect devices for delivering social services. Practices are regarded as in need of repair by evaluation (and research) that can deliver the necessary science-based solution to the problems of practice. This article presents a different view of practices as material and linguistic events in which activities and relationships are constituted …
Evaluation as Practical Hermeneutics
This paper challenges the view that the 'general logic' or 'logic of evaluation' is foundational for understanding what it means to do 'good' evaluation. It attempts to show that the general logic is indexed to the modernist paradigm of reason and that evaluation practice can be alternatively indexed to the discourse of practical hermeneutics. The paper aims to advance our understanding of practical hermeneutics by explaining several of its salie…
Educating for Intelligent Belief in Evaluation
We are facing a rather worrying brew of developments affecting practical intellectual life in modern society and the very well-being of society itself. These developments threaten to degrade the central role that the cognitive endeavor, known as reasoned evaluative criticism, plays in the achievement, maintenance, and enhancement of the good society. In this climate, we cannot simply teach about the ways and means of doing evaluation; we must als…
Back to the Rough Ground!' Beyond Theory to Practice in Evaluation
Opposition redirected
The discursive arena known as qualitative inquiry initially took shape in opposition to the epistemology and politics associated with philosophies of logical positivism and empiricism and the doctrine of value‐free science. An identity of resistance and antagonism continues to characterize many who identify with this arena of activity. This paper suggests that perhaps the energy devoted to maintaining this oppositional stance might be better redi…
A Postscript on Thinking about Dialogue
This article offers an interpretation of different notions of dialogue as are evident in a broad literature in the social sciences and the humanities. It sets the previous articles within this broad context while suggesting ways in which the nature, aim and methods of evaluation, as well as the roles and obligations of the evaluator, are connected to these different understandings of dialogue
Reading the "Problem of Evaluation" in Social Inquiry
Current uncertainty in the social sciences surrounding efforts to represent social reality, the cultural authority of social science, and the legitimacy and validity of its knowledge claims, is due, in part, to debate about the moral and political meaning of social inquiry practices. Although this is by no means a new debate, it has been brought to the foreground in recent years through developments in feminist philosophy, critical theory, and pr…
On the Mutually Informing Relationship Between Practice and Theory in Evaluation
The relationship between theory and practice, or between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge, is not a simple one, and rarely is it the case that theory is 'applied' to practice. This paper aims to clarify the relationship by briefly discussing the nature of practical problems and the role that theoretical knowledge plays in addressing those problems
Post-normal evaluation
Evaluation evolves, responding to developments in the technical, social, and political environments in which it unfolds as well as influencing how those contexts are to be understood and assessed. Evaluation has typically been understood as a reliable means of providing some assurance in the appraisal of the value of social interventions, but has increasingly been seen as having to address a variety of uncertainties and risks not simply in those …
Professionalization, Ethics, and Fidelity to an Evaluation Ethos
Current discussion of the professionalization of the practice of evaluation is focused on matters of competencies and credentialing and largely overlooks several significant issues. These include conflating professionalizing the practice with promoting the value of evaluation as a social good, assuming there is widespread agreement on what the terms profession and professional mean, and not considering how processes of professionalization are aff…
Critical Social Science
Dialogue on Dialogue
The text you are about to read is a dialogical text on dialogue and evaluation. It is a conversation between a group of scholars who have studied and published on the concept of dialogue and the value of dialogue for the practice of evaluation. The text is based on the field notes of a panel meeting held during a gathering of the European Evaluation Society to discuss this topic. It also contains an analysis of essays written in preparation for t…
Further Diagnostic Thoughts on What Ails Evaluation Practice
When Evaluation Meets the ‘Rough Ground’ in Communities
Based on experiences from two evaluation projects, the two partners in the following dialogue discuss the meaning of ‘resistance’ to evaluation, or more specifically, resistance to evaluation touching upon values that are central in some communities. Step by step, the dialogue identifies a tension between evaluation as a modernist undertaking and the traditional values of these communities. Through the dialogue about this tension, the ‘rough grou…
Understanding Dialogue as Practice
This article discusses implications of Ove Karlsson's article, ‘Critical Dialogue: Its Value and Meaning’, for thinking about the union of dialogue and evaluation. It argues that Karlsson's empirical example can be read in several ways each illustrating a different understanding of what dialogue is and how it relates to evaluation. These different understandings are further elaborated. Karlsson's article is also instructive in alerting us to thre…
Commentary: Moral Demands and Strong Evaluation
Reconstructing professional ethics and responsibility: Implications of critical systems thinking
Historians and sociologists remind us that it is disingenuous to ignore the fact that despite differences in research practices as well as the degree of scientization and compartmentalization of the social sciences between the United States and Europe there have been continuous communications between Europeans and Americans over their meaning, purpose, and methods (Mancias, 1987; Wagner et al., 1991). A similar observation about the field of eval…
Further diagnostic thoughts on what ails evaluation practice
Meta-Analysis and Everyday Life: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Remembering my Teacher
A Tribute to My Teacher
Cultural Anthropology
Recapturing Moral Discourse in Evaluation
Theory and practice in evaluation in particular and in applied social science in general are principally focused on methodological issues and on instrumental conceptions of knowledge use while relegating questions about morals and values to the periphery. Drawing on recent writing in social and political philosophy, particularly the critique of the liberal democratic tradition, the author examines liberalist beliefs and their consequences for con…
Solutions to the Paradigm Conflict: Coping With Uncertainty
Conflict between the quantitative and qualitative inquiry paradigms is ineluctable. Six solutions for resolving the conflict-denial, co-optation, supremacy, replacement, primacy of method, and anarchism-are reviewed and found wanting. In this article I propose that inquirers must choose an inquiry paradigm that is resonant with the values they wish to promote in the conduct of educational inquiry. I defend this modest proposal by examining the va…
Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook
Farewell to Criteriology
Criteriology is the quest for permanent or stable criteria of rationality founded in the desire for objectivism and the belief that we must somehow transcend the limitations to knowing that are the inevitable consequence of our sociotemporal perspective as knowers. The project of criteriology has, in turn, shaped our way of thinking about the epistemology of social inquiry. This article offers a way of redefining social inquiry without recourse t…
Evaluation as Practical Hermeneutics
This paper challenges the view that the 'general logic' or 'logic of evaluation' is foundational for understanding what it means to do 'good' evaluation. It attempts to show that the general logic is indexed to the modernist paradigm of reason and that evaluation practice can be alternatively indexed to the discourse of practical hermeneutics. The paper aims to advance our understanding of practical hermeneutics by explaining several of its salie…
Reading the "Problem of Evaluation" in Social Inquiry
Current uncertainty in the social sciences surrounding efforts to represent social reality, the cultural authority of social science, and the legitimacy and validity of its knowledge claims, is due, in part, to debate about the moral and political meaning of social inquiry practices. Although this is by no means a new debate, it has been brought to the foreground in recent years through developments in feminist philosophy, critical theory, and pr…
Commentary: Moral demands and strong evaluation
Commentary: Moral Demands and Strong Evaluation
On Understanding Understanding
The phenomenon of understanding lies at the heart of the qualitative inquiry enterprise. Drawing on the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, this article discusses the following four conditions under which understanding unfolds: (a) the difference between knowing and understanding; (b) understanding as learning rather than reading; (c) understanding as relational and hence requiring openness, dialogue, and listening; and (d) understanding as …
Further Diagnostic Thoughts on What Ails Evaluation Practice
Further diagnostic thoughts on what ails evaluation practice
Meta-Analysis and Everyday Life: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Meta-analysis and everyday life: The good, the bad, and the ugly
Dialogue on Dialogue
The text you are about to read is a dialogical text on dialogue and evaluation. It is a conversation between a group of scholars who have studied and published on the concept of dialogue and the value of dialogue for the practice of evaluation. The text is based on the field notes of a panel meeting held during a gathering of the European Evaluation Society to discuss this topic. It also contains an analysis of essays written in preparation for t…
Dialogue on Dialogue
The text you are about to read is a dialogical text on dialogue and evaluation. It is a conversation between a group of scholars who have studied and published on the concept of dialogue and the value of dialogue for the practice of evaluation. The text is based on the field notes of a panel meeting held during a gathering of the European Evaluation Society to discuss this topic. It also contains an analysis of essays written in preparation for t…
Understanding Dialogue as Practice
This article discusses implications of Ove Karlsson's article, ‘Critical Dialogue: Its Value and Meaning’, for thinking about the union of dialogue and evaluation. It argues that Karlsson's empirical example can be read in several ways each illustrating a different understanding of what dialogue is and how it relates to evaluation. These different understandings are further elaborated. Karlsson's article is also instructive in alerting us to thre…
A Postscript on Thinking about Dialogue
This article offers an interpretation of different notions of dialogue as are evident in a broad literature in the social sciences and the humanities. It sets the previous articles within this broad context while suggesting ways in which the nature, aim and methods of evaluation, as well as the roles and obligations of the evaluator, are connected to these different understandings of dialogue
Verstehen: The Uses of Understanding in Social Science
Notes on evaluating the ecology of rehabilitation praxis
Rehabilitation services are typically regarded as an intervention, delivered by a professional service provider, designed to achieve the outcome of functional improvement in the life of the client or patient The primary evaluation question is whether that intervention is an effective and efficient means to the given end of functional improvement I suggest an alternative way of thinking of both rehabilitation and evaluation: The phrase ‘ecology of…
Back to the Rough Ground!' Beyond Theory to Practice in Evaluation
Linking validity and ethics in language testing: Insights from the hermeneutic turn in social science
The Centrality of Practice to Evaluation
There is a strong tendency for evidence-based approaches to social practices to view these practices as imperfect devices for delivering social services. Practices are regarded as in need of repair by evaluation (and research) that can deliver the necessary science-based solution to the problems of practice. This article presents a different view of practices as material and linguistic events in which activities and relationships are constituted …
When Evaluation Meets the ‘Rough Ground’ in Communities
Based on experiences from two evaluation projects, the two partners in the following dialogue discuss the meaning of ‘resistance’ to evaluation, or more specifically, resistance to evaluation touching upon values that are central in some communities. Step by step, the dialogue identifies a tension between evaluation as a modernist undertaking and the traditional values of these communities. Through the dialogue about this tension, the ‘rough grou…
Opposition redirected
The discursive arena known as qualitative inquiry initially took shape in opposition to the epistemology and politics associated with philosophies of logical positivism and empiricism and the doctrine of value‐free science. An identity of resistance and antagonism continues to characterize many who identify with this arena of activity. This paper suggests that perhaps the energy devoted to maintaining this oppositional stance might be better redi…
The Sage Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry
Conventions Readers' Guide Preface About the Author A Note on Teaching and Learning Qualitative Inquiry List of Terms
Sociology (40 works) · Psychology (28 works) · Epistemology (26 works) · Evaluation and Performance Assessment (23 works) · Philosophy (20 works) · Political science (20 works) · Engineering (14 works) · Law (14 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Philosophy (13 works)