Judicial Model of Evaluation

The early 1970s saw a proliferation of new models for evaluation, including some extrapolated from fields such as art, literature, and justice. Though still discussed as part of evaluation theory, only a few of these extrapolated approaches have thrived. Most seem to have gone extinct. The models based on jurisprudential procedures may be among the latter.

More specifically, in the Western approach to jurisprudence, hearings are among the chief methods of sorting out the most convincing conclusion from often incomplete or biased evidence. There are several variations. Hearings can be used for clarification or illumination purposes without a decision being reached, such as hearings before Congressional committees. Hearings can be used for review purposes, such as hearings on the fitness of candidates for key appointments. Hearings can also be used for reaching a legal decision, such as hearings before a judge and jury on specific charges. Usually, the judge or hearing officer ensures that the rules of fair argument are observed and a jury reaches conclusions based on evidence presented by the defense and prosecution attorneys.

Among the defining elements of a hearing is the assumption that there are two (or more) sides to almost every question, sides that are adversaries to each other. The hearing process recognizes this through providing a forum for presenting the best case for or against a position, with cross-examination to identify weaknesses in arguments by the defense or advocate and the prosecution or adversary. In this sense, the judicial process is similar to the formal debate process.

The intriguing parallels between judicial processes and evaluation, particularly with regard to possible biases in favor of or against a program, seem to have been discussed first by T. R. Owens in 1971. In the next few years, some evaluators tried out what was then called the adversarial or judicial evaluation model. Since the early 1980s, however, there seem to be no instances of a real-world application of the approach. The last full-on sighting may have been around 1980 and 1981 in the National Institute of Education's national hearing on minimum competency testing. Nonetheless, in texts on evaluation, the judicial, adversarial, or clarification approach often is included as if it were no more or less flourishing than, say, case study approaches, experiments, and mixed methods. Although judicial, adversarial, and clarification concepts are not quite entirely interchangeable, for purposes of this entry, the term “clarification hearing” will refer to all three variants because it seems best to reflect the underlying purposes.