Developmental Evaluation: Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use
New York: Guilford Press (2011), xxi, 373 pp.
Contains bibliogr. pp. 341-353, index
ISBN 978-1-60623-872-1 (pbk); 978-1-60623-886-8 (hbk)
Signature commbox: 00-Management-E 2011
"Developmental evaluation offers a powerful approach to monitoring and supporting social innovations by working in partnership with program decision makers. In this book, eminent authority Michael Quinn Patton shows how to conduct evaluations within a developmental evaluation framework. Patton draws on insights about complex dynamic systems, uncertainty, nonlinearity, and emergence. He illustrates how developmental evaluation can be used for a range of purposes: ongoing program development, adapting effective principles of practice to local contexts, generating innovations and taking them to scale, and facilitating rapid response in crisis situations. Students and practicing evaluators will appreciate the book's extensive case examples and stories, cartoons, clear writing style, "closer look" sidebars, and summary tables." (Publisher description)
1 Developmental evaluation defined and positioned, 1
2 Developmental evaluation as a distinct purpose and niche, 28
3 Thinking outside evaluation's boxes, 53
4 Situation recognition and responsiveness: distinguishing simple, complicated, and complex, 80
5 Systems thinking and complexity concepts for developmental evaluation, 111
6 How the world is changed: a dialectic with thesis and antithesis, and developmental evaluation as the synthesis, 152
7 The adaptive cycle and developmental evaluation, 189
8 Developmental evaluation inquiry frameworks, 227
9 Developmental evaluation bricolage: reflective practice, sensitizing concepts, action research, abduction, systems change, and retrospective developmental evaluation, 264
10 Utilization-focused developmental evaluation: engagement practices, diverse designs, and adaptive methods, 305
2 Developmental evaluation as a distinct purpose and niche, 28
3 Thinking outside evaluation's boxes, 53
4 Situation recognition and responsiveness: distinguishing simple, complicated, and complex, 80
5 Systems thinking and complexity concepts for developmental evaluation, 111
6 How the world is changed: a dialectic with thesis and antithesis, and developmental evaluation as the synthesis, 152
7 The adaptive cycle and developmental evaluation, 189
8 Developmental evaluation inquiry frameworks, 227
9 Developmental evaluation bricolage: reflective practice, sensitizing concepts, action research, abduction, systems change, and retrospective developmental evaluation, 264
10 Utilization-focused developmental evaluation: engagement practices, diverse designs, and adaptive methods, 305
