Compare methods

	Participatory Evaluation	Developmental Evaluation
Field	Public Policy	Public Policy
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1998	2011
Originator	J. Bradley Cousins & Elizabeth Whitmore	Michael Quinn Patton
Type	Collaborative, stakeholder-engaged evaluation approach	Complexity-informed evaluation approach for innovation
Seminal source	Cousins, J. B., & Whitmore, E. (1998). Framing participatory evaluation. New Directions for Evaluation, 1998(80), 5–23.	Patton, M. Q. (2011). Developmental Evaluation: Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN: 9781606238721
Aliases	Collaborative Evaluation, Stakeholder-Based Evaluation, Practical Participatory Evaluation	DE, Patton Developmental Evaluation, Complexity-Informed Evaluation
Related	4	4
Summary	Participatory evaluation is a family of approaches in which stakeholders — program staff, beneficiaries, community members — are engaged as active partners in conducting the evaluation rather than as passive subjects of it. In their influential 1998 framing, J. Bradley Cousins and Elizabeth Whitmore distinguished two streams: practical participatory evaluation, oriented to improving program decisions and use, and transformative participatory evaluation, oriented to empowerment and social justice. What unites them is shared control of the inquiry, but they vary along dimensions of who participates, how much control they hold, and how deeply they are involved.	Developmental evaluation is an approach designed to support innovation and adaptation in complex, dynamic environments where the intervention itself is still emerging. Articulated by Michael Quinn Patton in his 2011 book, it abandons the assumption of a fixed, pre-specified model to be tested, and instead embeds an evaluator within the design team to provide real-time feedback that informs ongoing development. Its purpose is development — helping social innovators learn, adapt and respond as conditions change — rather than the improvement of a settled program (formative) or the judgement of a completed one (summative).