The Client in Intrinsic Agency-Based Evaluation: Implications for Social Work Pedagogy.

The author addresses the importance of the evaluation client within evaluation theory and practice and offers a qualitatively derived framework for conceptualizing this role in social work evaluation. Based on an interpretative qualitative analysis of graduate students’ evaluation reports authored over 11 offerings of a specific capstone course on intrinsic agency-based evaluation, the author undertook an analysis of 96 reports selected from 220. Using open coding, the author surfaced four alternative ways of conceiving of the evaluation client, and through interpretation organized those into a typology incorporating two dimensions: the client’s strength of evaluation perspective, and the client’s level of engagement. The author discusses each of the four cells, identifies issues facing social work evaluators when they interact with each type of evaluation client, and draws conclusions for the role of each of the four types of evaluation client in intrinsic agency-based evaluation. The author draws implications for the use of the typology in undertaking client-driven evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]