General Evaluation Models

• Connoisseurship Evaluation (Eisner) involves a connoisseur or expert in a field of study estimating the worth of a new innovation. Obvious biases and threats to validity exist. (See Program Evaluation, Venedam).
• Goals-Oriented/Objectives-Based (Tyler, 1949) describes whether or not students have met their goals, with the results informing how to handle a new instructional strategy (i.e., revise, adopt, reject). One weakness is the evaluator may overlook unexpected outcomes or benefits of instruction beyond original goals. (See Program Evaluation, Venedam).
• Goals-Free Evaluation (Scriven) supplements inherent weaknesses in a goals-oriented approach by providing an unbiased perspective of ongoing events. (See Critique of Accreditation).
• Judicial/Adversary Evaluation focuses on comparing or describing all sides of an innovation, both positive and negative. Analogous to the defense and prosecution of a court room. (See Evaluation Exploration, Crawford).
• Kirkpatrick's 4-Level Model describes student "reactions" to and "learning" from an innovation, as well as "behavior" changes in real job performance, and other potpourri "results." (See Instructional Systems Evaluation, Clark, 1997).
• Situated Evaluation describes the characteristics of varying contexts that cause innovations to fail or succeed differently. Proponents of situated evaluation argue that educational innovations are situated within their context of use. (See Situated evaluation for cooperative systems, Twidale et al., 1994).
• Stufflebeams' CIPP Model describes the "context" in which an innovation occurs, the "inputs" of the innovation, the formative "processes" occurring, and the summative "products" or outcomes. (See A Design for Evaluation, Nova).