Policy evaluation in a time of fiscal stress: Some reflections from British experience

The debate on the use or nonuse of policy evaluation frequently starts from the normative assumption that is a rational and rewarding activity for governments to pursue. Failure to use evaluation is assumed to indicate political and organizational inefficiencies and weaknesses that can, and should, be corrected. This article argues that this is too simplistic an assumption that abstracts evaluation from the political and social context in which it is developed and utilized. In particular, the way that governments develop and use evaluation is conditioned, first by the macroeconomic climate in which they operate and second, by the ways they choose to respond to this and by the microeconomics of the budgetary process. These issues are explored in the context of recent developments in British central government. here a tight fiscal policy and a concern with administrative costs have led to move from top-down rational systems of evaluation to more pragmatic, bottom-up concerns with performance measures and performance indicators. It is concluded that policy evaluation is unlikely to regain and enhance its credibility unless a reshaping of administrative structures and processes take place. Andrew Gray and Bill Jenkins are respectively senior lecturer in adminiistrative studies and senior lecturer in interdisciplinary studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury, England. They have worked for a number of years on the development of management reforms in the UK government and have recently been involved in a research project on the evolution of the Financial Management Initiative (FMI) in British central government departments. Their publications includeAdministrative Politics in British Govenment (Wheatsheaf Books, 1985) and articles in such journals asFinancial Accountability and Management, Public Administration, andPublic Money and Management.     

Brief report: Filial anxiety in mothers and daughters: Cross-validation of Cicirelli's (1988) Filial Anxiety Scale

This study replicated and extended prior research on filial anxiety by examining two generations of women in the same families. Eighty-five mothers and daughters completed several measures assessing filial anxiety, general anxiety, family relationships, self-efficacy in caregiving, filial responsibility, and perceived health. Results showed an exact replication of Cicirelli's (1988) two-factor solution of the Filial Anxiety Scale (FAS) for the middle-aged mothers, but a three-factor solution and some item overlap across factors for the undergraduate daughters. Mothers and daughters scored similarly on most of the other measures. Correlational results indicated that the different dimensions of the FAS relate differently with the other measures. Results are discussed in terms of the need for additional scale development with younger adults and in terms of the broader context of the correlational findings.     

Caregiver-patient dyads: Documenting the verbal instructions caregivers provide in joint cognitive tasks

Thirty spousal caregivers and their partners (who had been diagnosed as having primary degenerative dementia) jointly performed four cognitive tasks: Block Design (from the WAIS-R), the Token Test, and two memory tasks. Two of the tasks were unstructured, and two were structured. Caregivers served as the instructor on all tasks. Interactions were videotaped. Results showed that caregivers provided appropriate verbal instructions to a greater extent on the unstructured nonverbal task (Block Design) than on the unstructured memory task. Results are discussed in terms of implications for dyadic cognition research and intervention in dementia.     

Authoritarianism of Parents and Offspring: Intergenerational Politics and Adjustment to College

The authoritarianism scores (RWA) of parents and their college-aged children were hypothesized to interact to affect the intergenerational transmission of political attitudes and offspring adjustment to college. Parent and offspring dyads who matched on RWA (both scored high or low) agreed about the importance of social events and on the mechanisms by which political attitudes were transmitted from parent to offspring. Disagreeing dyads (parent scored high on RWA and offspring scored low or parent scored low on RWA and offspring scored high) did not show this pattern. In addition, 2-year longitudinal data revealed that offspring who mismatched with their parents on authoritarianism had a more difficult time adjusting to college than did offspring who matched with their parents on authoritarianism. Discussion stresses the importance of examining the implications of home context on the authoritarianism of adolescent children.     

The effect of foregrounding on readers’ use of predictive inferences

This research extends previous attempts to determine whether subjects make predictive inferences during comprehension. For example, when subjects read a passage about someone falling out of a 14th-story window, do they infer that the person is dead? Previous research in which lexical decision, word naming, and recognition tasks have been used for detecting predictive inferences has had mixed results. In experiment 1, a word-stem completion task was used to test for predictive inferences. The word stems were formed from target inferences that followed either priming or control passages. The data revealed that predictive inferences are generated only about concepts that are foregrounded in the passages. In Experiments 2 and 3, lexical decision and naming were used to test for predictive inferences. The lexical decision data replicated the word-stem completion data. A control experiment ruled out a simple context-checking explanation for the lexical decision results. The naming data indicated that this tasks was not sensitive to elaborative inference generation. Theresults show that readers make predictive inferences, but do so selectively.     

Delusional verbalizations and beliefs

This study evaluated the intensity of delusional beliefs during the modification of delusional verbalizations with three chronically mentally ill inpatients. The multiple-baseline across responses design was used to evaluate the efficacy of a behavioral treatment package to modify delusional verbalizations. Results revealed that changes were obtained in delusional verbalizations to personal questions without corresponding changes in the subjects' delusional beliefs. Changes in delusional verbalizations were well-maintained for two subjects during a 6-month follow-up period. Mixed results were obtained for generalization probe interviews.     

Influence of a Photograph on a Charitable Appeal: A Picture May Be Worth a Thousand Words When It Has to Speak for Itself

Several studies were conducted examining the influence of the use of photographs of a needy individual on a charity appeal for either a well-known or lesser-known charity organization. Results of an initial study indicated that people expected the use of a photograph to enhance the effectiveness of a door-to-door solicitation campaign and that a well-known charity would fare better than a lesser-known one in its efforts. Results of two subsequent studies involving door-to-door solicitations, however. indicated that the proportion of people contributing and the average amount contributed was not dependent upon either the photograph or familiarity with the charity. A final study using a passive countertop solicitation in stores did result in greater contributions when the photograph was present, whereas there was no difference due to charity familiarity. These findings are discussed in terms of image-maintenance concerns and social pressures associated with the immediacy of a request.