Eisner'S Artistic Evaluation Model

Possibly the most obvious referent would be the approach to educational evaluation that Elliot Eisner has fashioned using art criticism as a model. Eisner's connoisseurship-criticism model can be considered an artistic approach to evaluation for at least four reasons.

First, Eisner draws on a number of aesthetic theories, including those of John Dewey and Susanne Langer, to conceptualize and justify his educational connoisseurship and criticism model. Second, the model emphasizes the use of artistic and literary forms of discourse to describe the program that is being evaluated. (Only evocative, somewhat poetic language can capture the ...