Should the evaluator of a programme or service be external or internal staff? It depends essentially on the objectives of evaluation: if evaluation is performed on behalf of a super ordinate authority with control functions the evaluator should not belong to the group that actually managed the service or operated the programme; on the contrary, if evaluation only has educational purposes, i.e. building up know-how deriving from the service, it is essential that internal staff actively take part in evaluation.
Generally speaking, in order to identify the evaluator we need to refer to the goals that evaluation is supposed to achieve:
- if our purpose is the exchange of information within the group (expressing problems, sharing know-how and support) evaluation can be carried out without resorting to external experts, although supervision can be necessary in these cases;
- if we need to check the progress of a programme or service, a good administrator, assisted by competent staff in the direct management of the project, is sufficient;
- if, instead, we need to change something while progressing, it is convenient to resort to the operating staff with the help of an expert or specialist supervisor, to avoid that the operators' emotional involvement prevents them from having a general overview and the necessary detachment to decide on the most convenient changes;
- evaluation shall be carried out by external evaluators if the evaluation target involves subjects with different or opposite interests (financers, managers, beneficiaries) or concerns a possible drastic decision on the service or programme or high resources are involved demanding high responsibility and the necessity to adopt strictly scientific procedures.
Resorting to external evaluation means by no way excluding operators from the evaluation process; on the contrary, internal staff can provide precious and complete information and help with the interpretation of collected data. It can be necessary to resort also to other subjects: decision makers and financers of a programme or service, the recipients, whose satisfaction - or opinion - play a very important role in evaluation, as well as experts, i.e. external people with special competence who can provide meaningful suggestions for the evaluation process.
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