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Internal evaluation, historically speaking
Author(s) -
Mathison Sandra
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
new directions for evaluation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.374
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1534-875X
pISSN - 1097-6736
DOI - 10.1002/ev.393
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , conservatism , speculation , government (linguistics) , function (biology) , evaluation methods , internal validity , political science , public administration , sociology , public relations , law , business , history , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , finance , evolutionary biology , reliability engineering , politics , biology , engineering , medicine , pathology
The author analyzes the growth and nature of internal evaluation from the 1960s to the present and suggests that internal evaluation has been on the increase because of its perceived importance. Although the 1960s were characterized by a rich intellectual development of evaluation theory and practice, the fiscal conservatism of the 1980s ushered in evaluation practice focused more specifically on cost effectiveness. During that time, internal evaluation began to increase. In the 1990s this trend continued and was intensified by the reinvention of government known as the New Public Management. The author argues that in this results‐oriented neoliberal context, evaluation is maintained as an internal function, but focuses primarily on descriptive accounts of performance. The chapter concludes with some speculation about the nature of future internal evaluation. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc., and the American Evaluation Association.