The Twelve-Part Typology of Evaluation Uses

Abstract

Bringing evaluation insights to use is a mantra among evaluators. Their standard solution is to discern instrumental, conceptual, and legitimizing uses as utilizations of evaluation products and to regard use of evaluation processes as a fourth type essentially different from the previous three. In two fundamental ways, this article is breaking loose from this three-times-one typology of use. One deviation is adding tactical, ritual, and constitutive product uses to the prevailing triad of instrumental, conceptual, and legitimizing uses. Even more fundamental is the second divergence, where all six uses are joined not only to product use but to process use as well. This means that all six types of use will turn up in the form of both product use and process use, leading to a six-times-two pattern instead of the three-times-one-uses-of-evaluation typology. The result is the Twelve-part typology of evaluation uses. After elaborating on the evaluation product-use/evaluation process-use distinction, the paper deliberates on the twelve-part evaluation uses typology in detail and provides practical examples of them all for illumination.