[The Congress and Evaluation]

A personal view was presented in a speech on the role of program evaluation in the political arena; specifically, in the congressional decisionmaking environment. The speaker: (1) disagreed with the view that legislators are invulnerable to changing their minds on the basis competent analysis; and (2) maintained that direct, instrumental use of analysis is more likely to occur in committee deliberations than in the context of floor debate and vote. The speaker also noted that most legislators clearly distinguish between those decisions which have a conspicuously political content and those which do not and often consider evaluations based on this criteria. This suggests that the types of evaluations in which Congress is interested may differ significantly from those which the evaluation community has tended to regard most highly. The speaker concluded that, although evaluations are an important tool in the political arena, they could be used more effectively.