Believing Evaluation Findings
A key concept in conducting and using evaluations is that of validity. In scientific research, validity is a benchmark of the rigor and truthfulness of findings. According to Shadish (1995, p. 421),
Validity is a property of knowledge, not methods. No matter whether the knowledge comes from an ethnography or an experiment, we may still ask the same kind of questions about the ways in which that knowledge is valid.… A hammer does not guarantee successful nailing, successful nailing does not require a hammer, and the validity of the claim [to have nailed two boards together] is in principle separate from which tool was used. The same is true of methods in the social behavioral sciences.
House (1980) extends a very ...
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