Monday, June 25, 2007

Empowerment Evaluation in IRAN

Empowerment Evaluation: The case of Iran

Mohammad Hasan Mohaqeq Moein

Tehran: 25June 2007

SALAM !! One day on autumn 2000 when I am in the center of Tehran at my desk and after search in internet and take my work suddenly hear a warm voice : WELCOM TO MY VIRTUAL OFFICE !! Oh! What is it? Then watch my monitor and see professor Fetterman page! Since today I use his extended information and learn about evaluation.

It is a part of my first e mail to professor Fetterman on: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 01:

I am an instructor in a higher vocational education center in Tehran and have MA in sociology. At the present time .I am busy working on a national research project "evaluation and effectiveness of courses in higher vocational education" in Iran. Three stakeholders: the graduates, their instructors, and their employers fill in the research questionnaires. I think your "empowerment evaluation" and "outcome evaluation" method are suitable for my project. What is your idea? Do you have any recommendations?

professor Fetterman advise me by some best information and I finished my research and wrote reports. My first attention for translate empowerment evaluation literature in Persian language. "Arzehyaby tavanmand saz" is the synonyms of "empowerment evaluation" in Farsi!
! Every one could see this Persian article about EE AT this page from Thursday, April 03, 2003. I create this English language electronic page about EE from Saturday, March 01, 2003.

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For my evaluations work under contract of Ministry of Education and for evaluative purpose I create many weblogs for example : weblog arzeshyaby tosify and this sister blog ! .For my initial evaluation work with empowerment evaluation model at Sunday, March 09, 2003 you can see this page. All links at this paragraph is about primary school evaluation reform project in the nation level in Iran.

After this works I translated Empowerment Evaluation literature in Persian book in 2004. This is the cover page of my book. Furthermore I work with about 25 governmental and non governmental organizations for two years and we can prepare a national plan named: community based empowerment for extended empowerment activity in Iran . this plan consist a framework for planning , executing , monitoring & evaluating empowerment projects .unfortunately the ministry of social welfare have no necessary capacity for funding and applicants this national plan. The Persian story of this work was written at this Farsi blog .

I think EE is a phenomenon that spread in the four corner of the world. I try presenting EE workshops in my country and until now I have only two workshops!! One case on winter 2006 and another on spring 2007. In my last workshop that take place in sannandaj (a Kurdish city in west of Iran) in 26 to 28 April 2007. We work with 13 young people from Non Governmental Organizations . every one can see the FARSI short story of this scientific course at this page. In this workshop I use EE model and complete it by my idea about use logic modeling method in EE activities .before the end of this event, we could preparing a training compact disc and award it to all workshop participant. The content of CD are about 400 mega bite CLASSIFIED and linkable information consist of text, voice, film & picture about sannandaj workshop!! We named this CD in Farsi ARZESH.

In sannandaj workshop we present a new electronics tools for training monitoring! named PAYESH in Farsi. After every two sessions of workshop the participant complete an electronics forms that have five question with five or four Likert scale answers about the story off ours works on that two sessions. I try best attention to this continues monitoring information.

Unfortunately the demand off EE workshop in Iran is low!! I create Moein empowerment evaluation institute under Iranian legal condition three years ago and until now we haven’t any contract!! I up a website for this institution from the beginning day off Moein institute . I think evaluation is a enlightenment work & I am from sociology ground it is enough for me to try and try over days and nights for extend my idea about evaluation, reform & progress . I personally admin Moein Scientific Network in Farsi that means candela in English .

It doesn't matter, the GOD is big! And evaluation is so important! than my little try. I created an idea along of EE and named it" Moein modular evaluation model "!! every one knew that we have big socio cultural and especially political and academicals challenges for expanding good evaluation in Iran same in USA. Albeit the condition of Iran is very tragic in this field, especially in the academic field! For more information about the perspective of academician evaluator in Iran see this article at this web page

In this summer I want to translate only the chapter one of Stufflebeam & Shinkfield new book named: Evaluation Theory, Models, and Applications in Farsi and will publish it. Albeit in review literature of EE I saw the Stufflebeam critique and professor Fetterman good response, named: MYTHS AND MISPERCEPTIONS at : American Journal of Evaluation, 6 1995; vol. 16: pp. 179 - 199. and The online version of this article can be found at: this page.

I see the table of content of this book and disagree with the authors about EE. I think the essence of evaluation is empowerment. And this idea has a capable for take a theme of annual AEA meeting one year. Same mainstreaming evaluation or consequence of evaluation, we can think about what is the essence of evaluation?

But the first chapter of Stufflebeam & Shinkfield new book that I can take from internet as a copy material is another think. It is the comprehensive text in evaluation that I see. I think this think is the best think for my country at this time. It is a bomb of evaluation that will have an explosion in Iranian academic climate.