Although evaluation has been increasingly used ina variety of public spheres, including education,for about 50 years, attention to evaluation and itsuses in ELT is relatively recent. Essentially,evaluation is carried out to determine the extentto which a programme or intervention is worth-while, and to aid decision-making through thepurposeful gathering of information which isanalysed and reported to stakeholdersinter-ested parties who have a 'stake' in the activityevaluated. The evaluation may be carried out byprofessional evaluators or by a group made upfrom the stakeholders; its scale may be nationwideor within an institution; and it may take a few daysor several months to complete. Evaluators use themethods of social science research, and thediscipline is sometimes referred to as 'evaluationresearch'.It is usual to distinguish different functions ofevaluation (Patton 1987, Weir and Roberts 1994,Fink 1995). An evaluation can be carried out tosee if a programme has met its targets (summativeevaluation), checking, for example, whether or nota predetermined proportion of students haveachieved a specified level of language proficiency.The focus of such evaluations is usually account-ability. The evaluation may investigate how far aprogramme is on track to achieve its targets(formative evaluation), looking, say, at howteachers implement training in methodologywithin a new curriculum; also, within a formativeapproach, and starting out with no pre-set criteria,the evaluators can, for example, study teachers'attitudes and practice in order to understand howa programme works. In cases such as these thefocus is usually on development. The complemen-tary and overlapping nature of the focuses isincreasingly recognized, and developmental eva-luations can contribute valuable information tosummative reviews (Mackay 1994).The results of the evaluation may indicate that theprogramme is working satisfactorily, but in gen-eral there is an expectation that they will revealareas for improvement. However, this does notguarantee that the stakeholders will act on thefindings, or that the results will be available tothem in time. As this remark implies, evaluationsoften give rise to practical difficulties, which arefurther complicated by the political use that maybe made of them, especially where those who

commission the evaluations (usually the fundingbody) either want them to show results favourableto their view of the programme, or will use theresults for their own ends rather than those ofother stakeholder groups.Two areas in particular have aroused controversywithin evaluation. In the past, questions aboutapproach have focused on the use of quantitativeversus qualitative measures associated withexperimental or naturalistic designs. However,the use of both is now more widely accepted, andthe use of mixed methods is also advocated (e.g.Lynch 1996). Current debate on approach isconcerned with how far evaluation deals with anobjective world, or whether it can only ever dealwith a socially constructed reality (positivismversus constructivismsee Lynch 1996). Contro-versy over the conduct of evaluation has to dowith who carries it out, and how findings are used.Early proponents of the use of evaluation ineducation suggested that teachers should learn toevaluate, but in many contexts the conduct andresults of evaluations have been kept in the handsof administrators and inspectors, creating an air ofmystique and exclusion which has led people toregard evaluation with suspicion.

More recent advocates of teachers' use of evalua-tion have tended to focus on evaluation fordevelopment, and some practitioners in ELThave adopted this approach (e.g. Rea-Dickinsand Lwaitama 1995). This move has beenprompted partly by a greater consciousness ofchange and of the need for change, as well as byresearchers and educators turning their attentionto what happens in the classroom, and to teacherdevelopment. Dissatisfaction with the manage-ment of programmes and the implementation ofnew curricula has also brought increased attentionto the role that insider evaluation may play intheir development.Ministries and officials, as well as practitioners,now encourage the wider use of evaluation byinsiders such as teachers. However, the mechan-ical implementation of evaluation instruments byuntrained users is not fruitful. Even thoughteachers may not be trained in all aspects ofevaluation, and may only have limited skills, thecrucial element is that they should be able tocontrol what they do in evaluation (Murphy 1996).Evaluations need to be designed for the context inwhich they are used, sensitive both to local

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conditions and to the audience that will use them.In essence, evaluation is either a practical, goal-oriented activity or it is not worthwhilea pointwhich applies as much to large-scale evaluationsas to those conducted by teachers working ontheir own or in a small group. The increasing bodyof case studies of teachers using evaluation showsthat valuable results can be achieved for improv-ing and developing curricula and professionalskills where limited resources are intelligentlyused (e.g. Rea-Dickins and Lwaitama 1995).Dermot F. Murphy

ReferencesFink, A. 1995. Evaluation for Education and

Psychology. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.Lynch, B. K. 1996. Language Program Evaluation.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Mackay, R. 1994. 'Undertaking ESL/EFL pro-

gramme review for accountability and improve-ment'. ELT Journal 48/2: 142-9.

Murphy, D. F. 1996. 'The evaluator's apprentices.Learning to do evaluation'. Evaluation 2/3:321-38.

Patton, M. Q. 1987. How to Use QualitativeMethods in Evaluation. Newbury Park: SagePublications.

Rea-Dickins, P., and A. F. Lwaitama (eds.). 1995.Evaluation for Development in English Lan-guage Teaching. Review of English LanguageTeaching 3/3 1993. London: Modern EnglishPublications in association with the BritishCouncil.

Weir, C, and J. Roberts. 1994. Evaluation inELT. Oxford: Blackwell.

The reviewerDennot Murphy teaches in the School of Educationat King's College London. He has experience ofconducting evaluations, and training teachers toevaluate in Africa, Latin America, South-East Asia,and Europe.Email:

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