Michael Quinn Patton (born 1945) is an independent organizational development and program evaluation consultant, and former president of the American Evaluation Association. He is the founder and director of Utilization-Focused Evaluation.
After receiving his doctorate in sociology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he spent 18 years on the faculty of the University of Minnesota (1973–1991), including five years as Director of the Minnesota Center for Social Research and ten years with the Minnesota Extension Service.
Patton has written many books on the art and science of program evaluation, including Utilization-Focused Evaluation (4th ed., 2008), in which he emphasizes the importance of designing evaluations to ensure their usefulness, rather than simply creating long reports that may never get read or never result in any practical changes. He has written about evaluation, and worked in the field beginning in the 1970s when evaluation in the non-profit sector was a relatively new development.
In "Developmental Evaluation: Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use," Patton makes a convincing case that evaluation can also be useful when there is not a fixed model being improved (as in formative evaluation) or tested (as in summative evaluation). In cases where there is not yet a clear model, or where the environment is too complex and changing too fast for the model of practice ever to be fixed, developmental evaluators can be of great assistance by helping people articulate their hunches and hopes, do "vision-directed reality testing," tracking emergent and changing realities, and "feeding back meaningful findings in real time so that reality testing facilitates and supports the dynamics of innovation." (p.7) This type of evaluation is particularly helpful in the context of social innovation, where "goals are emergent and changing rather than predetermined and fixed, time periods are fluid and forward-looking rather than artificially imposed by external deadlines, and the purposes are innovation, change, and learning rather than external accountability (summative evaluation) or getting ready for external accountability (formative evaluation)." (p. viii). Instead of evaluating a program to determine whether resources are being spent on what they're supposed to be spent on, developmental evaluation helps answer questions like, "Are we walking the talk? Are we being true to our vision? Are we dealing with reality? Are we connecting the dots between here-and-now reality and our vision? And how do we know? What are we observing that's different, that's emerging?" (p.13).
Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Award (awarded by the Evaluation Research Society and subsequently by the (American Evaluation Association) for "outstanding contributions to evaluation use and practice"
Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award for lifetime contributions to evaluation theory (awarded by the American Evaluation Association).
2001 Lester F. Ward Award for Outstanding Contributions to Applied Sociology (presented by the Society for Applied Sociology).
2017 Research On Evaluation Award (American Evaluation Association)
Patton was president of the American Evaluation Association in 1988 and co-chair of the 2005 International Evaluation Conference in Toronto sponsored jointly by the American and Canadian evaluation associations. He sits on the Editorial Advisory Board for The Foundation Review.
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 18th century. In addition to sociology, it now encompasses a wide array of academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, linguistics, management, communication studies, psychology, culturology and political science.
In common usage, evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any other intervention or initiative to assess any aim, realizable concept/proposal, or any alternative, to help in decision-making; or to generate the degree of achievement or value in regard to the aim and objectives and results of any such action that has been completed.
Social constructionism is a term used in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory. The term can serve somewhat different functions in each field; however, the foundation of this theoretical framework suggests various facets of social reality—such as concepts, beliefs, norms, and values—are formed through continuous interactions and negotiations among society's members, rather than empirical observation of physical reality. The theory of social constructionism posits that much of what individuals perceive as 'reality' is actually the outcome of a dynamic process of construction influenced by social conventions and structures.
Science and technology studies (STS) or science, technology, and society is an interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their historical, cultural, and social contexts.
Educational research refers to the systematic collection and analysis of evidence and data related to the field of education. Research may involve a variety of methods and various aspects of education including student learning, interaction, teaching methods, teacher training, and classroom dynamics.
Educational assessment or educational evaluation is the systematic process of documenting and using empirical data on the knowledge, skill, attitudes, aptitude and beliefs to refine programs and improve student learning. Assessment data can be obtained by examining student work directly to assess the achievement of learning outcomes or it is based on data from which one can make inferences about learning. Assessment is often used interchangeably with test but is not limited to tests. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community, a course, an academic program, the institution, or the educational system as a whole. The word "assessment" came into use in an educational context after the Second World War.
Program evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs, particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency.
Karl Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish economist and sociologist.
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) is a U.S.-based education policy and research center. It was founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of the United States Congress. Among its most notable accomplishments are the development of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA), the Flexner Report on medical education, the Carnegie Unit, the Educational Testing Service, and the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.
Narrative inquiry or narrative analysis emerged as a discipline from within the broader field of qualitative research in the early 20th century, as evidence exists that this method was used in psychology and sociology. Narrative inquiry uses field texts, such as stories, autobiography, journals, field notes, letters, conversations, interviews, family stories, photos, and life experience, as the units of analysis to research and understand the way people create meaning in their lives as narratives.
The Duluth model is a community based protocol for intimate partner violence (IPV). The model is biased because it neglects women's violence, violence within same-sex relationships, bidirectional abuse, and was not created through academic study. Academics prove it is an extreme, negative, and polarized model.
Formative assessment, formative evaluation, formative feedback, or assessment for learning, including diagnostic testing, is a range of formal and informal assessment procedures conducted by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment. The goal of a formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work. It also helps faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately. It typically involves qualitative feedback for both student and teacher that focuses on the details of content and performance. It is commonly contrasted with summative assessment, which seeks to monitor educational outcomes, often for purposes of external accountability.
Psychology encompasses a vast domain, and includes many different approaches to the study of mental processes and behavior. Below are the major areas of inquiry that taken together constitute psychology. A comprehensive list of the sub-fields and areas within psychology can be found at the list of psychology topics and list of psychology disciplines.
Empowerment evaluation (EE) is an evaluation approach designed to help communities monitor and evaluate their own performance. It is used in comprehensive community initiatives as well as small-scale settings and is designed to help groups accomplish their goals. According to David Fetterman, "Empowerment evaluation is the use of evaluation concepts, techniques, and findings to foster improvement and self-determination". An expanded definition is: "Empowerment evaluation is an evaluation approach that aims to increase the likelihood that programs will achieve results by increasing the capacity of program stakeholders to plan, implement, and evaluate their own programs."
Ronald Eugene Anderson, also known as Ron Anderson, was an American sociologist. He was a Professor Emeritus at University of Minnesota in Twin Cities where he taught sociology from 1968 to 2005. His early work focused on social and institutional factors shaping the diffusion of technology-based teaching. Since 2007, his work has focused on web-based compassion and world suffering.
Jack Rothman is an American sociologist and social worker. He is best known for his work in community organizing within the field of social work. He has authored some 25 books and monographs and lectured extensively on social problems and social change. His core interests include poverty, inequality, racism and multicultural relations, mental health, and community participation.
Yvonna Sessions Lincoln is an American methodologist and higher-education scholar. Currently a Distinguished Professor of Higher Education and Human Resource Development at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, Lincoln holds the Ruth Harrington Endowed Chair of Educational Leadership. As an author, she has been largely collected by libraries.
Marvin C. Alkin is Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles. Alkin joined the UCLA faculty in 1964 after receiving his doctorate from the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. He has, at various times, served as Chair of the Education Department and Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. He was founder and former Director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Evaluation.
Milton James Bennett, often cited as Milton J. Bennett, is an American sociologist. He is credited as the creator of Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS).
Kathleen Marian Charmaz was the developer of constructivist grounded theory, a major research method in qualitative research internationally and across many disciplines and professions. She was professor emerita of sociology at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California, and former director of its Faculty Writing Program. Charmaz’s background was in occupational therapy and sociology. Charmaz’s areas of expertise included grounded theory, symbolic interactionism, chronicity, death and dying, qualitative health research, scholarly writing, sociological theory, social psychology, research methods, health and medicine, aging, sociology of emotions, and the body.
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