Mark, Melvin M.

(b. 1953, Grand Island, Nebraska). Ph.D., M. A. Social Psychology, Northwestern University; B.A. Psychology, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

[Page 245]Mark is Professor of Psychology and Senior Scientist at the Institute for Policy Research and Evaluation, Pennsylvania State University.

Mark's current work focuses on the theory, methods, and practice of evaluation and the appropriate use of social science research in social policy, particularly in the context of program evaluation, and includes several areas of the intersection and interaction between affect, cognition, and motivation in psychological processes. He has conducted federally funded evaluations in the areas of prevention programs for at-risk youth, federal personnel policies, and industrial modernization and has also been involved in evaluations of state and local programs. Mark is a coauthor (with Gary Henry and George Julnes) of Evaluation: An Integrated Framework for Understanding, Guiding, and Improving Policies and Programs and Realist Evaluation. In these works, Mark and his collaborators provide an evaluation theory that captures the sense-making contributions from postpositivism and the sensitivity to values from constructivist traditions.

As an undergraduate, Mark was inspired to study social psychology by Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiment, a classic experiment conducted in the 1950s on building positive intergroup relations. Mark currently lives in the house formerly occupied by the Sherifs. His graduate studies at Northwestern University were motivated by an interest in doing social psychology in real-world settings. It was at Northwestern that he was drawn to evaluation and especially methodological issues by the work and intellectual charisma of Tom Cook and Don Campbell.

Mark, in his role as Editor of the American Journal of Evaluation, has contributed to promoting quality dialogue in and about evaluation. Mark was the 2000 recipient of Pennsylvania State University's College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Teacher Award.