With a great sense of loss, the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) wishes to inform you that Dr. Michael Scriven has passed away. For over 60 years, Dr. Scriven helped to build the foundations of the evaluation field and shape it into the discipline and a profession that it is today. He also educated and guided several generations of new evaluators.
After earning his doctorate at Oxford, Scriven worked as a university professor and evaluator, primarily in Australia and the United States. He served as president of the Evaluation Network (ENet), the American Evaluation Association (AEA) and the American Educational Research Association (AERA).
Much is written elsewhere that documents Michael Scriven’s many achievements, so CES would like to briefly acknowledge some of his specific influences on evaluation in Canada.
Michael Scriven gave us the gift of language to better understand the terms and concepts in the evaluation field.
For more than three decades, the CES Essential Skills Series of courses have conveyed basic knowledge and skills about program evaluation to persons new to the evaluation field. The first learning objective is to explain essential evaluation terms and concepts. In common with the leading textbooks in evaluation, this conversation begins with Scriven’s definition of evaluation as the process of determining the merit, worth and value of something, and evaluations as the products of that process. The course then compares Scriven’s definition of evaluation to a variety of other definitions, leading to thoughtful and lively discussions. Throughout the course, participants learn terms and concepts originated by Michael Scriven, such as evaluand, unintended consequences, evaluation paradigms and approaches, pseudoevaluations, and the difference between formative and summative evaluation. You are encouraged to review the range of terms and concepts that have defined the evaluation field by referring to Scriven’s Evaluation Thesaurus (Sage, 1991).
Michael Scriven gave us the gift of evaluative thinking and thinking critically about our evaluation paradigms.
Scriven’s first described the steps of evaluation reasoning in his book The Logic of Evaluation (1981). Over time, the evaluation field has recognized these concepts as the basis for evaluative thinking.
Michael Scriven applied evaluative thinking to the critical appraisal of our evaluation paradigms.For example, in the 1970s, there was a strong movement to institute goal-based evaluation as the primary paradigm in the United States and Canada. This was to be unified evaluation system that assessed program outcomes in terms of the attainment of intended goals as measured on a common scale. Michael Scriven strongly opposed equating program evaluation with the measurement of goal attainment, because it was too narrow, distorted the nature of evaluation, and ignored unintended consequences. Instead, he proposed goal-free evaluation that involved a comprehensive evaluation of program outcomes by independent evaluators of the program as implemented, rather than of goals as planned.
Over the years, Michael Scriven participated in many debates about other evaluation paradigms and issues, including the purposes of evaluation, rendering evaluative judgements, the limitation of quantitative methods, the application of qualitative approaches, the importance and limitations of evaluation use, and the validity of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for program evaluation. He was a strong advocate for methodological pluralism rather than orthodoxy or rigidity. He saw evaluation as an ethical enterprise and an important way to promote justice.
These debates demanded attention from evaluators and they usually generated much heat. Scriven’s commanding stature, thunderous voice, arguments firmly based in logic, and his provocative comments about the shibboleths of evaluation drew crowds that overflowed into the hallways. Hotel janitors and service staff would stop their work and listen to him debate, even though they were unlikely to know anything about evaluation. As a debater, Michael Scriven had few equals.
Michael Scriven changed our vision of the evaluation field and our vision of ourselves as evaluators.
Evaluation as a discipline has a low profile–it has been called a “best-kept secret” as a field of practice. In Canada, evaluators like to say that we are team players and should not draw too much attention to ourselves. Evaluators in Australasia complain that they suffer from the “tall poppy syndrome.” They maintain a low profile because any poppy that grows too tall or commands too much attention is quickly cut to size. In contrast, Scriven encouraged evaluators to have a new vision of ourselves and to grow tall and flourish.
Rather than viewing evaluation as an obscure young discipline just tentatively emerging, Scriven offered the bold vision of evaluation as “trans-discipline” and a “trans-science,” that is, a discipline that applies to and is used as a methodological tool in many other disciplines, as is logic and statistics. Through the ages in western civilization, first theology, next physical sciences, and then mathematics were crowned as the Queen of the Sciences. For Michael Scriven, evaluation rightfully occupied that position. He saw professional evaluators as the courtiers and emissaries of Queen Evaluation. To promote his vision for evaluation, Scriven became the co-founder and editor of the open-access online Journal of Multi Disciplinary Evaluation.
Through his debates and his numerous publications, Scriven helped us develop a sharper vision of the evaluation field, the roles of evaluators, and the knowledge and competencies required to be effective and confident evaluators. In so doing, Dr. Scriven contributed in developing the foundation for the CES Professional Development Program (PDP) and the Credentialed Evaluator (CE) designation that we value so much today.
Michael Scriven inspired and nurtured the next generation of evaluators.
Michael Scriven was university professor and a gifted teacher and mentor to several generations of evaluators. He was greatly respected by students of evaluation in many fields of practice. At evaluation conferences, one would often find Michael Scriven having lunch or dinner at a nearby restaurant surrounded by throngs of graduate students. It wasn’t unusual to find 20-30 students with tables pushed together surrounding him, and hanging on to his every word, as he answered their questions and discussed evaluation with them hour after hour.
As part of his dedication to students, he inaugurated the Michael Scriven Dissertation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Evaluation Theory, Methodology or Practice.
From the CES perspective, it is noteworthy that the first recipient in 2007 of the Scriven Award was Kim van der Woerd. Kim is a proud member of the ‘Namgis Nation. Her dissertation for her Ph.D. in Psychology at Simon Fraser University focused on a comprehensive participatory evaluation of a federally funded First Nations substance abuse treatment centre.
Prior to his death, as a professor at Claremont Graduate University and co-director of the Claremont Evaluation Center, Michael Scriven founded and endowed the nonprofit The Faster Forward Fund for accelerating the theory, practice, and profession of evaluation.
Final Comments
Few persons have had as much impact on evaluation theory and practices as Michael Scriven. If you would like to learn more, a good source is Stewart Donaldson’s The Future of Evaluation in Society: A Tribute to Michael Scriven (IAP, 2013). To honour his passing, there are numerous tributes, videos, reading lists, and Michael Scriven’s own articles that are readily available online.
Arnold Love, Ph.D., CE
Fellow of the Canadian Evaluation Society
September 2023