3. Theoretical framework
In 1981, the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation listed the standards of excellence in
Evaluation including utility, feasibility, propriety and accuracy and reiterated them in its 1994 version (Joint
Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, 1981, 1994).
Among these standards, program evaluators have always considered utility an especially challenging issue (Weiss, 1972; Deitchman, 1973; Patton, 1990).
Patton stated that ‘evaluations ought to be useful’ (p.25) and Patton’s (1981) previous work addressed creative
approaches to maximizing an evaluations usefulness, including methodological flexibility and multiple evaluator roles.
Empowerment evaluation takes utilization focused evaluations a step further, as Patton (1997) acknowledges.
It involves the participation of those who are affected by the program making the experience empowering for them as well as making the evaluation results useful.