Abstract
Although much research on evaluation (RoE) is intended to eventually improve
practice, little of it embeds the research in ongoing evaluations so that immediate
improvements can be made at the local practitioner level in real time. Action
Design Research is an approach to develop and improve practice as part of the
ongoing process of conducting an evaluation. After identifying limitations in
current approaches to RoE, I discuss the need for a case-based view of practice
that emphasizes practical as well as technical reasoning and then discuss the use
of Action Design Research to develop and test alternative evaluation practices
to both improve ongoing practice and contribute to general knowledge about the
professional practice of evaluation. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., and the
American Evaluation Association.