The transformation of a goal definition: The story of a “second chance” evaluation study

Abstract

The evaluation study of the external high school system has brought about an interesting transformation in the definition of the system's goals. This poses new challenges to the evaluation process and its implications. From the very beginning, we were challenged by the dualistic image of the external school system which might have implied a discrepancy between its actual objectives and the offer of a second chance to mobility. As stated formally and publicly, the external schools deal with youngsters who have left regular high school for various reasons, and offer them a chance to return to school in order to reach the much desired matriculation certificate. In other words, the system offers a second change. This is the main expectation of the students and, in their view, the actual main objective of the school. Accordingly, this should be the basis for the evaluation of its success. From this perspective, the external schools have clearly failed. They do not fulfill the promise of a second chance that is operationalized in terms of getting the matriculation certificate. However, from teachers', principals' and policy-makers' viewpoint the external schools have a dualistic goal orientation, both instrumental and custodial. The custodial goal, i.e., keeping youngsters in school, is far from reflecting a second chance for future mobility. Furthermore, all parties perceive the external schools as systems which offer a second chance. In order to explain these discrepancies the second chance offered by these schools was redefined as a second chance to pass the competence threshold , and to demonstrate one's potential scholastic capacity. In our analysis we went beyond the classic approaches to evaluation. We attempted to evaluate actual effects against demonstrated educational and social needs. We agreed with Scriven (1974) that if a product has an effect that could be shown to be responsive to demonstrated needs, that product should thus be positively evaluated. Although it seems to us that this transformation of goal definition offers a reasonable explanation of the discrepancies we found, we are aware of the danger of being tempted to discovering needs or to adopting new goals in order to positively explain present outcomes and to reject the notion of failure. As an explorative analysis, ours is close to what House has termed “evaluation as argument” (1977), where the emphasis is on credibility and persuasion, rather than on certainty and absolute conviction. Validating the redefined goals, however, requires a new and different study.