Methods of evaluation: how to evaluate?

The chapter aims to describe methods, levels, criteria and tools of evaluation in the EDUEVAL model. The complexity of the evaluation of the work of adult education staff entails the importance of using a triangulated approach, capable of understanding a reality characterized by multiple dimensions – as is educational work – through different perspectives of analysis and points of view. The EDUEVAL model - that is based on the mixed use of qualitative and quantitative data and methods of evaluation - has been built up from the triangulation of self-evaluation, external evaluation and evaluation of the context. Multiple tools for evaluating the work of adult education staff (precisely observation grids, log books and other forms of professional writing, interviews and focus groups, the analysis of the documentation of the service, portfolios, rubrics, questionnaires, the audit) are described.