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Ethical Challenges
Ethical Challenges All evaluators face the challenge of striving to adhere to the highest possible standards of ethical conduct. Translating the AEA’s Guiding Principles and the Joint Committee’s Program Evaluation Standards into everyday practice, however, can be a complex, uncertain, and frustrating endeavor. Moreover, acting in an ethical fashion can require considerable risk-taking on the evaluator’s part. In the Ethical Challenges column, commentators share their views of how evaluators might respond to specific problematic situations, linking their analyses to the principles and standards they believe are most relevant to the case. Not surprisingly, the perspectives that commentators offer are not always in agreement. When this occurs, reflection on the nature and sources of these differences of opinion can enhance our sensitivity to the ethical dimensions of our evaluation work, and our awareness of the options available for addressing them. Readers who wish to submit cases to Ethical Challenges, or serve as commentators, should contact Michael Morris, section editor, at [email protected].
Ethical Challenges In evaluation, as in most other realms of life, some ethical challenges are tough because it’s hard to figure out what the right thing to do is, while others are daunting because we know all too well the action we should take. The problem in the latter instance is that “doing the right thing” can put us at risk professionally and/or personally. In analyzing “Put on a Happy Face,” both of our commentators appear to view the challenge in this case as an example of the second, “do the right thing,” category rather than the first. Their discussion raises, both explicitly and implicitly, an important issue for our profession: To what extent is it possible to lower the risk of, and the need for, these types of decisions? Displays of individual courage, although inspiring to behold, are a fragile foundation upon which to build pervasive ethical practice. It is far better to have in place institutional and organizational cultures that routinize expectations and support for ethical behavior. What role can evaluation, and evaluators, play in building and maintaining such environments? The commentators for this scenario are Linda Mabry and J. Bradley Cousins. Linda Mabry is a professor at Washington State University in Vancouver, where she specializes in the evaluation and assessment of student achievement. A member of the American Evaluation Association’s Board of Directors, her publications include Evaluation and the Postmodern Dilemma (JAI Press, 1997) and Conducting Evaluation in the Real World: Overcoming Budget, Time, and Data Constraints (Sage, forthcoming).
Michael Morris • Section Editor, Department of Psychology, University of New Haven, West Haven, CT 06516, USA; Tel: (1) 203 932 7289; E-mail: [email protected]. American Journal of Evaluation, Vol. 25, No. 3, 2004, pp. 381–382. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 1098-2140 © 2004 by American Evaluation Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Brad Cousins, who teaches at the University of Ottawa, has written extensively on participatory and collaborative forms of evaluation and applied research. The Editor of the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, his recent publications include “Utilization effects of participatory evaluation,” in the International Handbook of Educational Evaluation (Kluwer, 2003), and “Crossing the bridge: Toward understanding use through systematic inquiry,” which appears in Evaluation Roots: Tracing Theorists’ Views and Influences, edited by M.C. Alkin (Sage, 2004). Michael Morris
Ethical Challenges In evaluation, as in most other realms of life, some ethical challenges are tough because it’s hard to figure out what the right thing to do is, while others are daunting because we know all too well the action we should take. The problem in the latter instance is that “doing the right thing” can put us at risk professionally and/or personally. In analyzing “Put on a Happy Face,” both of our commentators appear to view the challenge in this case as an example of the second, “do the right thing,” category rather than the first. Their discussion raises, both explicitly and implicitly, an important issue for our profession: To what extent is it possible to lower the risk of, and the need for, these types of decisions? Displays of individual courage, although inspiring to behold, are a fragile foundation upon which to build pervasive ethical practice. It is far better to have in place institutional and organizational cultures that routinize expectations and support for ethical behavior. What role can evaluation, and evaluators, play in building and maintaining such environments? The commentators for this scenario are Linda Mabry and J. Bradley Cousins. Linda Mabry is a professor at Washington State University in Vancouver, where she specializes in the evaluation and assessment of student achievement. A member of the American Evaluation Association’s Board of Directors, her publications include Evaluation and the Postmodern Dilemma (JAI Press, 1997) and Conducting Evaluation in the Real World: Overcoming Budget, Time, and Data Constraints (Sage, forthcoming).
Michael Morris • Section Editor, Department of Psychology, University of New Haven, West Haven, CT 06516, USA; Tel: (1) 203 932 7289; E-mail: [email protected]. American Journal of Evaluation, Vol. 25, No. 3, 2004, pp. 381–382. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 1098-2140 © 2004 by American Evaluation Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
381
382
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EVALUATION, 25(3), 2004
Brad Cousins, who teaches at the University of Ottawa, has written extensively on participatory and collaborative forms of evaluation and applied research. The Editor of the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, his recent publications include “Utilization effects of participatory evaluation,” in the International Handbook of Educational Evaluation (Kluwer, 2003), and “Crossing the bridge: Toward understanding use through systematic inquiry,” which appears in Evaluation Roots: Tracing Theorists’ Views and Influences, edited by M.C. Alkin (Sage, 2004). Michael Morris