Pedagogical Principles of Evaluation: Interpreting Freire

Abstract

Pedagogy of evaluation entails examining how and what evaluation teaches. Embedded in different evaluation approaches are varying assumptions, values, premises, priorities, sense‐making processes, and principles. Elucidating and illuminating principles is fundamental to identifying and understanding a pedagogy of evaluation. Ten pedagogical principles from Paulo Freire's writings are identified and explained. Each principle is then examined for its relevance to a critical pedagogy of evaluation for evaluation theory and practice today and looking forward. Freire understood and taught us that all interactions between and among people are pedagogical, something is always being taught, conveyed, and proselytized. Extending this insight to evaluation, Freire's work reminds us that all evaluation approaches constitute a pedagogy of some kind. What any particular evaluation teaches and how it is taught varies, but evaluation is inherently and predominantly a pedagogical interaction. This leads to the concluding question: What is your pedagogy of evaluation?