Linking Auditing and Meta-Evaluation: Enhancing Quality in Applied Research

I have reviewed the Thomas A. Schwandt and Edward S. Halpern book and find it to be both timely and a needed resource in the area of program evaluation. --Robert W. Covert, Evaluation Research Center, University of Virginia "Very clearly and systematically presented and will be of considerable value to evaluation practitioners and consumers of evaluation reports as well as to those directly involved in the conduct of meta-evaluations. For the meta-evaluator this book is probably the clearest and most comprehensive handbook available, and it will surely be found invaluable by anyone required to conduct a meta-evaluation of either a naturalistic or a conventional evaluation. Evaluation practitioners will find the book extremely helpful as it will force them to think more rigorously about the design and execution of their studies and to document more carefully their work. . . . This is an extremely well written and useful book which is sure to find a wide audience among all who are concerned with assessing and enhancing the quality of evaluations." --Evaluation Practice This book provides a detailed discussion of the use of an auditing model for judging the quaity of naturalistic inquiries. The approach can be used retrospectively in judging the quality or trustworthiness of a naturalistic study upon its completion. It can be applied prospectively as well in planning a naturalistic study, for example in determining what ought to be placed in an audit trail and what might be done to increase the likelihood that trustworthiness criteria will be satisfied at the conclusion of the study. Detailed information is provided on constructing an audit trail from the written materials generated in a naturalistic study, conducting an audit (including specific auditor tasks and questions that focus the audit examination), and preparing an audit report.

Thomas A. Schwandt is Professor of Education in the Department of Educational Psychology in the College of Education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also holds appointments in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory and the Department of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership. He has been a faculty member and a Fellow of the Poynter Center for Ethics and American Institutions at Indiana University, Bloomington and member of the faculty in medical education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His papers on qualitative methodology, issues in the philosophy of interpretive social science, and evaluation theory have appeared in a variety journals and edited books.

He is the author of Evaluation Foundations Revisited:  Cultivating a Life of the Mind for Practice (Stanford University Press, 2015), Evaluation Practice Reconsidered (Peter Lang, 2002), and Evaluating Holistic Rehabilitation Praxis (Kommuneforlaget, Oslo, 2004); and co-author (with Kenneth Prewitt and Miron Straf) of Using Science as Evidence in Public Policy (National Academies Press, 2012) and (with Edward Halpern) of Linking Auditing and Meta-evaluation (Sage, 1988); co-editor (with Katherine Ryan) of Exploring Evaluator Role and Identity (Information Age Press, 2002), (with Peder Haug) of Evaluating Educational Reforms:  Scandinavian Perspectives (Information Age Press, 2003), and (with Bridget Somekh) Knowledge Production: The Work of Educational Research in Interesting Times (Routldege, 2007). He was the editor of the American Journal of Evaluation from 2010-2014.

In 2002, he received the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award from the American Evaluation Association for his contributions to evaluation theory.