Reasoning in Evaluation: Why Does It Matter?

ABSTRACT This article addresses two significant philosophical debates of importance to the evaluation context, which have transcended science and social sciences for centuries. These debates center around philosophical approaches and approaches to reasoning as they relate to evaluation. We aim to impress upon evaluators the importance of understanding how and why philosophical approaches; specifically holism and reductionism, and approaches to reasoning; specifically deductive, inductive, and abductive approaches, inform their general practice and approaches to individual evaluations. This article does not intend to weigh in on or add to these debates, as they have received sufficient treatment elsewhere by philosophers and logicians. Rather, we argue that within their situational context, evaluators must understand their philosophical choices and their approaches to reasoning and the impact that choices and approaches will have on the evaluation activities. Hence, the aim of this article is to explore situational context, philosophical choices, approaches to reasoning as a decision‐tree that leads to sound, effective methodological choices and useful evaluation outcomes. Like all articles in this issue, we do not believe any of these approaches are better or more preferable to evaluation in general, rather, we encourage evaluators to understand the choices and approaches they have at their disposal and to leverage their choices in answering their evaluation questions.