Stairways to Heaven? Seeking Evaluative Reasoning in Publicly Available Evaluation Reports from the Australian Education Sector 2014–2024.
Kerryn Meldrum and Amy M. Gullickson receive the 2026 Evaluation Journal of Australasia Publication Award for Stairways to Heaven? Seeking Evaluative Reasoning in Publicly Available Evaluation Reports from the Australian Education Sector 2014–2024. Their article tackles a fundamental question for evaluation: are reports labelled “evaluations” actually reaching defensible judgements about the value of the programs they examine?
Meldrum and Gullickson analysed 37 publicly available Australian education sector evaluation reports published between 2014 and 2024. Using their framework, they found that only four—around 11 per cent—met their definition of a genuine evaluation.
Many reports collected and analysed evidence carefully but stopped short of making an explicit, defensible judgement about the quality, value or significance of the program being examined.
The authors show why that distinction matters. Their integrated framework brings together the logic of evaluation and evaluative reasoning, identifying the elements needed to move from evidence to judgement: criteria of merit, standards of performance, evidence assessed against those standards, synthesis and an explicit evaluative conclusion.
The article’s “stairways to heaven” model makes these ideas particularly accessible. It presents research and evaluation as two staircases beginning from a common landing but leading towards different destinations, helping evaluators and commissioners distinguish between the questions each type of inquiry is designed to answer.
The article also recognises the practical constraints under which evaluations are commissioned and undertaken, including time, budget and the appetite for critical findings. Rather than simply identifying shortcomings, the authors propose a pragmatic response: where elements of evaluative reasoning are absent, reports should explicitly identify what is missing and explain why.
Combining theoretical rigour with a practical framework that can improve commissioning, evaluation practice and reporting, the article makes an important contribution to strengthening the quality and transparency of evaluation.
DOI: 10.1177/1035719X251412530
About the Evaluation Journal of Australasia Publication Award
This Award recognises the best article published in the Evaluation Journal of Australasia (EJA) in the last 12 months. The Award is a joint initiative of the EJA editors and the AES Awards and Recognition Working Group. The EJA editors make the selection based on a review of all eligible articles in relation to professionalism, ethical conduct and the quality of the publication.
A quality publication will contain the following attributes:
- sound use of evaluation theory and approaches
- includes a literature review to substantiate the relevance of the evaluative study and context
- contributes significantly to scholarship, research, and/or pedagogy
- demonstrates originality of thought and careful investigation
- is well-written and engaging for its intended audience.