Social Construction of Reality - Bad Request

every five years, and, in the interim, things could go awry” (Electronic survey, May 1).
Another explained, “yes, ‘evaluation capacity building’ is the piece that changes the
culture. Without a cultural acceptance of program evaluation processes a program
evaluation will not be validated by the stakeholders. It will take time to acculturate
stakeholders into feeling and knowing that program evaluation is a must, not a wish”
(Electronic survey, May 2). The respondent who did not respond “yes” did not exactly
respond “no”-- though the response showed little patience for the concept of capacity
building: “I think we are making this more complicated than it needs to be. The
BOE/Admin needs to determine which programs it wants to evaluate. Agree on the
program goals, make sure they can be measured, proceed. Maybe I’m missing something
here” (Electronic survey, May 2). The significance of this response is that runs contrary
to the notion of stakeholder inclusion that was so roundly touted throughout the data
collection. Its divergence from the mentality evidenced throughout the other data,
inclusive of all electronic survey responses, indicates the fitness of the Delphi technique
to allow for divergent voices. Moreover, this was not the only response that raised the
question of whether or not the respondent actually understood what the question was
asking. For instance, another respondent who started the response with “yes” continued
with “However, I do believe that there could be a point of diminishing returns if an
organization was to over evaluate” (Electronic survey, May 5).
Question 5. What process(es) or activities do you recommend to lessen anxiety on
the part of the program manager whose program is about to be evaluated? Several
concrete imperatives surfaced out of these answers. First, a multi-year evaluation
schedule, complete with the pre-determined depth of the evaluation and what that means,
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