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

The emergence of new evaluation paradigms raises serious questions about how merit can be established and judged. Linking Auditing and Metaevaluation addresses this concern, introducing a strategy by which the quality of inquiry procedures and products can be assured and retrospectively assessed. Based upon the model of fiscal auditing, the technique is applicable to a variety of social scientific investigations and specifically includes non - conventional paradigms such as naturalistic evaluation. Effective regardless of the nature of the inquiry, auditing is also an excellent means of organizing data, thus promoting theorizing and identification of relationships in that data. Each section includes exercises designed both to encoura

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.