Abstract

FIRME, Thereza Penna; LETICHEVSKY, Ana Carolina; DANNEMANN, Ângela Cristina  and  STONE, Vathsala. Evaluation culture and evaluation policy as guides to practice: reflections on the Brazilian experience. Ensaio: aval. pol. públ. educ. [online]. 2009, vol.17, n.62, pp.169-179. ISSN 0104-4036.

There is no doubt that having evaluation policies makes the evaluator’s job easier, by providing more transparency to the evaluation process and more security to those involved. However, this can only happen when policies are presented to potential stakeholders in clear language, as they are disseminated and utilized for guiding practice. This suggests that building an evaluation culture is necessary in order to effectively implement an evaluation policy, so it can be fully utilized. This paper briefly introduces and presents what the authors understand as the concept of “evaluation culture” and “evaluation policy”. Then, it discusses the importance of evaluation policies for practice of both evaluation and meta-evaluation, and points out the possible consequences of absence of policies. Recommendations are derived from these considerations in order to inspire procedures to build and implement evaluation policies. Finally, reflections are presented based on the Brazilian experience about “culture-policy-practice” inter-relations in evaluation.

Keywords : Evaluation; Evaluation Policies; Evaluation Culture; Practice; Brazilian Experience.

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