- Preparing for the Evaluation
I now posit that rigorous evaluative thinking combines critical thinking, creative thinking, inferential thinking, and practical thinking.
Critical thinking demands questioning assumptions; acknowledging and dealing with preconceptions, predilections, and biases; diligently looking for negative and disconfirming cases that do not fit the dominant pattern; conscientiously examining rival explanations; relentlessly seeking diverse perspectives; and analyzing what and how you think, why you think that way, and the implications for your inquiry (Klein, 2011; Loseke, 2013).
Creative thinking invites putting the data together in new ways to see the interactions among separate findings more holistically; synthesizing diverse themes in a search for coherence and essence while simultaneously developing comfort with ambiguity and uncertainty in the messy, complex, and dynamic real work; distinguishing signal from noise while also learning from the noise; asking wicked questions that enter into the intersections and tensions between the search for coherent meaning and persistent uncertainties and ambiguities; bringing artistic, evocative, and visualization techniques to data analysis and presentations; and inviting outside-the-box, off-the-wall, and beyond-the-ken perspectives and interpretations.
Inferential thinking involves examining the extent to which the evidence supports the conclusions reached. […]
Practical thinking calls for assiduously integrating theory and practice; examining real-world implications of findings; inviting interpretations and applications from nonresearchers (e.g., community members, program staff, and participants) who can and will apply to the data what ordinary people refer to as “common sense;” and applying real-world criteria to interpreting the findings, criteria like understandability, meaningfulness, cost implications, and implications to address societal issues and problems.
In combing and integrating these ways of thinking, evaluative thinking forces clarity about the inquiry purpose, who it is for, with what intended uses, to be judged by what quality criteria; being explicit about what criteria are being applied in framing inquiry questions, making design decisions, determining what constitutes appropriate methods, and selecting and following analytical processes; and being aware of and articulating values, ethical considerations, contextual implications, strengths and weaknesses of the inquiry, and potential (or actual) misinterpretations, misuses, and misapplications. In contrast with the perspective of rigor as strict adherence to a standardized process, evaluative thinking emphasizes the importance of understanding the sufficiency of rigor relative to context and situational factors (Clarke, 2005; Patton, 2012). (as cited in Patton, 2018, pp. 21-22)