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Educating for Intelligent Belief in Evaluation

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, tschwand{at}uiuc.edu

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 also convey the idea of evaluation as a practical, intellectual disposition and outlook on social and political life. In sum, there is a pressing need to educate both aspiring evaluators and the citizenry for intelligent belief in evaluation. This article discusses several components of such a belief.

Key Words: critical thinking • evidence • evaluation theory • evaluation purpose

American Journal of Evaluation, Vol. 29, No. 2, 139-150 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1098214008316889


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