Funnell, Sue

(b. 1951, Sydney, Australia). M.A. Education, B.A. Psychology, University of Sydney

Funnell's work in evaluation stems from a mixed group of intellectual influences, including realist philosophy; evaluation approaches that focus on “the why of the outcomes”; stakeholder values; social justice and distributive considerations; and taxonomies of objectives, including those of Bennett, Bloom, Hastings, and Madaus.

Funnell's primary contribution to evaluation has been the development of a particular approach to program theory (program logic), beginning in the mid-1980s in Australia, that overcomes some of the shortcomings of mechanistic input-process-output-outcome models, gives explicit recognition to the complexities of causality, and incorporates evaluation criteria, including those that represent different stakeholder perspectives. The methodology helps to avoid simplistic and goal-displacing approaches to performance monitoring and is an antidote to black-box approaches ...