The Program Evaluation Standards in International Settings

6 Sandy TautIntroductionThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the cross-cultural applicability of The ProgramEvaluation Standards (Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, 1994). Aspecial emphasis is placed on the Standards’ implicit cultural values because these values makethe transfer of the Standards to other value contexts (i.e., cultures) difficult. In cross-culturalpsychological literature, the concept of standards is used to define values, e.g., as Smith andSchwartz (1997) put it, "values serve as standards to guide the selection or evaluation ofbehavior, people, and events" (in: Berry, Segall & Kagitibasi (ed.), 1997, Vol. 3, p. 80).According to Peoples and Bailey’s (1994) seminal anthropological textbook, values are definedas “providing the ultimate standards that people believe must be upheld under practically allcircumstances” (p. 28). In addition, Smith and Schwartz (1997; in: Berry et al., Vol. 3, p. 79)state that “[…] value priorities prevalent in a society are a key element, perhaps the most central,in its culture, and the value priorities of individuals represent central goals that relate to allaspects of behavior.” These researchers further note that “as standards, cultural value prioritiesalso influence how organizational performance is evaluated – for instance, in terms ofproductivity, social responsibility, innovativeness, or support for the existing power structure”(p. 83).The first assumption derived from these statements is that The Program Evaluation Standardsare values-based. The second assumption, supported by a large amount of research on culturalvalues (e.g., see Berry et al., 1997, Vol. 3, chapter 3), is that values differ across cultures:“cultures can be characterized by their systems of value priorities” (p. 80). Members of onecultural group share many value-forming experiences and therefore come to accept similarvalues.The discrepancy in values is not only apparent between the North American and other culturesaround the world, but also, for example, within the United States. There, one can identify somecultural subgroups whose values deviate from "mainstream America," e.g., Native Americans(see Miller, 1997; in: Berry et al., 1997, Vol. 1, p. 105).In contrast to values, norms are “shared ideals (rules) about how people ought to act in certainsituations, or […] toward particular other people” (Peoples & Bailey, 1994, p. 28). Norms arebased on values. In some of the Standards (e.g., Formal Agreements), the more concrete normsare reflected in lieu of the higher-level values.When analyzing the Program Evaluation Standards it seems important to refer to the JointCommittee's definition of standards and to address the Joint Committee's conclusions regardingtheir level of generality (across cultures and even within North America). The Joint Committee(1994) defines a standard as “a principle mutually agreed to by people engaged in a professionalpractice, that, if met, will enhance the quality and practice of that professional practice, forexample, evaluation” (p. 2). The Joint Committee acknowledges “that standards are not allequally applicable in all evaluations” (p. 2), that they are “guiding principles, not mechanical