Role

Program evaluation can be understood as the process of looking at how all aspects of a program or department have been functioning as the basis for informed planning and decision making. Although the objective dimensions used in evaluations can vary, methodologies can be categorized according to the four category framework (i.e., describing reviews in terms of goal-based, responsive, decision-making, and connoisseurship models) or the external-internal-self study continuum, which categorizes models according to the "distance " of the evaluators from the institution. Emerging approaches to evaluation tend to view evaluation as a process rather than a discrete event and include internal evaluation methods and the controversial fourth generation evaluation. This approach suggests that the first three generations of review (i.e., measurement, description, and judgment) fail to accommodate value pluralism, extend too much power to managers, and are overly dependent on the scientific paradigm of inquiry