Guba, Egon G. / Lincoln, Yvonna S. — FOURTH GENERATION EVALUATION.

Newbury Park / London / New Delhi, Sage Publications, 1997. 10th printing 294 pp. hardcover . Fourth Generation Evaluation represents a monumental shift in evaluation practice. Guba and Lincoln point to the inherent problems faced by previous generations of evaluators - politics, ethical dilemmas, imperfections and gaps, inconclusive deductions - and lay the blame for failure and nonutilization at the feet of the unquestioned reliance on the scientific/positivist paradigm of research. Fourth Generation Evaluation moves beyond science to include the myriad human, political, social, cultural, and contextual elements that are involved. Based upon relativism, a unity between knower and known, and a subjective epistemology, the authors show how fourth generation evaluation unites the evaluator and the stakeholders in an interaction that creates the product of the evaluation. very good condition