Evaluation will expand to evaluate programs in new arenas

Evaluation will expand to evaluate programs in new arenas. In the United States and Canada, evaluators have come primarily from education and psychology and have evaluated programs in those areas. But, the role of evaluation in housing, social welfare, environmental programs, city planning, transportation, health, criminal justice, biotechnology, recreation, and environmental programs continues to expand. Working in these new areas will prompt evaluators to expand their repertoire of approaches and methods to adapt to these new contexts, new political dynamics, and new issues to explore and investigate. In Europe, evaluators typically come from the disciplines of political science, economics, and public administration and, as a result, focus their efforts on different types of programs using somewhat different methods. Our growing awareness of these differences makes us realize that evaluators in each country can learn from practice in other countries.