Large-scale Evaluations

Abstract

In Part 2 in particular, we provided examples of evaluation studies undertaken for a variety of purposes that (i) reflected approaches and designs using different evaluation paradigms and (ii) drew on different constructs in applied linguistics research to inform the development of evaluation procedures. Several of those presented (e.g. chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8) were in fact examples of large-scale evaluations but there we did not analyse in any detail the criterial features or key facets of evaluations of this kind. In this chapter, we consider central evaluation decision-making points that may frame approaches and designs of large-scale studies.