Chapter 4: From Basic Research to Evaluation

The ambition of basic research to understand fundamental processes and structures is not adequate. Politicians and policy makers who want to judge the value and legitimacy of their policies require more concrete guidance. It is therefore expected that research demonstrates its benefits. Evaluation research has this goal. Can it really promise to give this guidance?

It is a paradox that it is perhaps basic research and not evaluation research, which can in the longer term provide the best guidance (Borg & Gall, 1983). The explanation can both lie in the manner in which the evaluation is planned and in the possibilities which exist for the implementation of its results. A party that may have a particular political and/or practical interest in the study object frequently commissions evaluation research and the study may actually have been commissioned to make planned decisions legitimate. Such research contexts do not give sufficient room for critical independent analysis of the theoretical problems encountered by the research or for developing valid research designs. The difficulties encountered by implementation have many causes. There is often a poor overlap between the commissioning party’s instrumental way of thinking and the time-consuming work of concept analysis and instrument development that researchers must undertake. The commissioning party’s mandate becomes too demanding in relation to all the questions which have to be answered. In addition, available time and economic constraints often give too little place for the fundamental explanatory work that is necessary to account for barriers in the field which determine if the goals can be realized. A lack of clarity about what the goals for the activity mean in practice is a second fundamental problem. Evaluation researchers face contradictory interpretations—something which makes it difficult, not to say impossible, to determine which qualities must be demonstrated to document that goals are fulfilled. For example, what do the concepts such as “adjusted education” or “inclusion” actually mean in practice? Should researchers themselves decide the practical content of such concepts?