goal-free evaluation

an evaluation of a program that is conducted without special knowledge of the program’s stated goals and objectives and is therefore less subject to the preconceptions or biases of the researcher. Instead, the evaluation attempts to assess the program’s actual effects on its clients and, importantly, any unintended negative side effects emerging from the program. Also called value-free evaluation. Compare goal-based evaluation. See also qualitative evaluation.

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Psychology term of the day

December 23rd 2024

scientific explanation

an account of an event, behavior, or thought that is couched in terms of an established set of scientific principles, facts, and assumptions. Typical forms of explanation may be reductionistic, analyzing a phenomenon into components and describing how they combine to produce the phenomenon; ontogenic, relating the phenomenon to a universal set of developmental stages; empiricistic, describing a phenomenon in terms of the conditions that have been observed to produce it; or metaphoric or categorical, identifying a phenomenon as similar in some important respects to other phenomena already understood. Such an explanation stated systematically is generally known as a theory.