Values and valuing

Evaluators work in a world of values. Evaluating is the process of addressing normative questions about what is good/bad, effective/unsuccessful, important/unimportant, meritorious/of little worth, and so on. Evaluators render value judgments like these about policies, programs, projects, and strategies. Evaluator involvement with valuing does not end there, however. Evaluators are also professionally duty-bound to sort through value perspectives, understanding, criticizing, and justifying their choice in guiding and appraising our social actions. This chapter discusses both professional obligations. It reviews the issues entailed when evaluators aim to judge the merit, worth, or significance of social interventions, including the logic and methodologies informing those judgments and professional responsibility for making those judgments. It also discusses how valuing is at work in the choice of criteria and in evaluators' professional commitments. The chapter provides an overview of some new ways in which values and valuing are being discussed in evaluation.