Abstract

In facing policymakers who are pressuring us for objective assessment of our programs, we should not assume that a narrow set of traditional scientific methods and conventions will guarantee acceptance of our knowledge claims. Nor should we assume that our methods and methodologies that fall outside those tight boundaries will be unfairly treated. Rather, we need to have at our disposal the full range of what we know and how we know it as we engage with such policymakers, who—like the rest of us—are sometimes moved in mysterious ways.