Involving Stakeholders in the Evaluation of Community Alcohol Projects: Finding a Balance Between Subjective Insight and Objective Facts

Abstract

The role played by key community representatives in the evaluation of community alcohol projects differs according to the evaluation paradigm adopted. In evaluations that adopt a positivist, experimental design they are cast in the role of independent informants. In post-positivist evaluations they are seen as having an interest in the evaluation and accordingly are considered active stakeholders. However, the degree to which stakeholders can be actively engaged in an evaluation varies considerably along a number of dimensions. Four dimensions of the stakeholder role—stakeholder inclusiveness, participation mode, participation frequency, and evaluation role—are examined in the context of eight evaluation theories. This is integrated into a model that links these dimensions to an object-subject continuum of stakeholder involvement. The model facilitates systematic consideration of these dimensions and will assist evaluators in achieving their desired balance of subjective insight and objective fact.

Keywords:

• alcohol
• community
• evaluation
• theory
• stakeholder

Notes

Notes

*The term community has become something of a policy buzzword that has been attached to a diverse range of ideas and initiatives. It means various things to a range of individual and systemic stakeholders. Shared geography, as an often regarded simplistic, common denominator, minimizes the range of other sharing options, which range from actual objects to beliefs, values, membership in, identification with, association with, posited statuses, etc., from a micro- to a globalized macrolevel. Editor's note.

1. The word laboratory here is used to highlight the need to ensure a control over the environment that allows the bias-free identification and measurement of the dependent and independent variables within the quasi-experiment.

2. The word grouping is used here although it is essentially a group of one. That is, Guba and Lincoln (1981) are the primary authors identified in this article.

3. This grouping is different from that of Fetterman's empowerment evaluation partly due to its historical roots but mainly in that the focus of participation is grassroots community members (frequently marginalized) rather than paid program staff. The grouping also excludes the practical participatory evaluation described in Cousin and Earl (1995), which, like Fetterman's empowerment evaluation, is open to the charge of not being associated with program participants (Smith, 1999). Thus the practical participatory evaluation described by Cousin and Earl is referred to the grouping stakeholder-based evaluation in this article (Brandon, 1998).