Developing a thoughtful approach to evaluation: Values-driven guidelines for novice evaluators

Novice evaluators in Aotearoa New Zealand have few resources to assist them with reconciling the complex philosophical, theoretical, and practice tensions inherent in programme evaluation. This article provides guidelines to assist novice evaluators in their journey to become "thoughtful" practitioners balancing methodological credibility with stakeholder empowerment. The approach is informed by an analysis both of key themes and tensions identified in the evaluation literature, and of the first author's experience as a novice evaluator contending with the difficulties of first articulating, and then advancing, the values she sought to embed in her practice.