Theory-based evaluation of community development : a South African case study

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study is a case study of the motivation for and application of a theory-drivenevaluation approach to a community development programme in South Africa. Themotivation for a theory-based approach is explicated within the context of theinability of experimental or 'black box' designs to evaluation to provide the requisiteinformation to programme implementers, programme managers as well as policymakers. It also argues that experimental design in evaluation has not lived up to itspromise of producing systematic and robust evidence about the impact of projects orprogrammes. Instead, experimental designs have struggled to maintain the integrity ofthe designs and are fraught with deficiencies that influence the quality of the results.The research context of a South Africa in the midst of political, economic and socialtransformation from 1994 to the present, is presented to highlight the complexchallenges facing the country in terms of economic upliftment, poverty alleviation andsocial transformation. The need to evaluate the various interventions and initiativesthrough policy changes and development programme is then established. One suchintervention, a community development programme initiated by the Centre forCommunity Development (CCD), is introduced as an example of an intervention withthe objectives to deal with the challenges listed above.The history and development of programme evaluation as an interdisciplinary, appliedfield of research are presented to illuminate the multiple purposes assigned toprogramme evaluation and to create the platform for further arguments for the use of atheory-based approach to evaluation. The history, growth and potential benefits of atheory-driven approach are shared as well as the barriers and critiques from variousquarters. A meta-theoretical analysis of the philosophical debates about theparadigmatic choices available to researchers is used to construct the ontological,epistemological and methodological landscape that influences various orientations toresearch. It shows how different researchers interpret this landscape or framework andlocates the theory-based approach to evaluation within a particular brand of realistontology.Community development is showcased in terms of its central concepts, that is'community' and 'development'. These concepts, individually and theirinterconnections, are interrogated and explained for the purposes of generating aconceptual and theoretical framework that is used later in the analysis of theevaluation findings. The research context of the community development programmeis then introduced and the evaluation findings are outlined and discussed. Theanalysis of the evaluation findings reveals the essence of the community developmentprogramme and provides guidance for further refinement of the theory-basedapproach.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University