Carol Hirschon Weiss was an American scholar of

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

and

policy analysis Policy analysis or public policy analysis is a technique used in the public administration sub-field of political science to enable civil servants, nonprofit organizations, and others to examine and evaluate the available options to implement th ...

. She was the Beatrice B. Whiting Professor of Education at the

Harvard Graduate School of Education The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) is the education school of Harvard University, a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1920, it was the first school to grant the EdD degree and the first ...

. She was one of the founders of the scientific study of social programs and policies.

Education and positions

Weiss was born in New York. She obtained a Bachelor's Degree at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

, followed by an M.A. and a Ph.D. at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. Weiss graduated from Columbia in 1977, where she worked at the

Bureau of Applied Social Research The Bureau of Applied Social Research was a social research institute at Columbia University which specialised in mass communications research. It grew out of the Radio Research Project at Princeton University, beginning in 1937. The Bureau's fi ...

. In 1978 she became a faculty member at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard. She was named the Beatrice B. Whiting Professor of Education there in 1999. Weiss was also a visiting fellow at the

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research institution at Stanford University designed to advance the frontiers of knowledge about human behavior and society, and contribute to the resoluti ...

, the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

, and the

United States Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a cabinet-level department of the United States government, originating in 1980. The department began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and ...

. She also served as President of the Policy Studies Organization.

Research

Weiss's research focused on policy studies, particularly in education, and she was one of the earliest scholars to develop methods for scientifically evaluating social programs. Weiss was one of the founders of theory-based evaluation, an approach for organizations to effect

social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Sustained at a larger scale, it may lead to social transformation or societal transformat ...

. In addition to developing methodologies for the scientific evaluation of policies, Weiss was also particularly noted for training others in how to apply those methodologies, and developing a community of people trained in the scientific evaluation of policies. Weiss published 11 books, in addition to more than 100 journal articles. Kathleen McCartney, while Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, described two of Weiss's books as being especially seminal: Weiss's 1972 book ''Evaluation research: Methods of assessing program effectiveness'', and her 1998 book ''Evaluation: Methods for Studying Programs and Policies''. ''Evaluation research'' in particular has been described as a fundamental work in program evaluation. The political scientist Kathryn Newcomer, in a commentary on ''Evaluation research'', summarized the book as "an in-depth analysis of many of the crucial and complex issues that plague evaluators and public managers", which argues that program evaluators and program managers should take into account the political and social context of public policies. In addition to her academic research, Weiss actively consulted on a wide variety of policy programs with governments and organizations throughout her career. She retired in 2006, after which she became a docent at the

Boston Museum of Science The Museum of Science (MoS) is a nature and science museum and indoor zoological establishment located in Science Park, a plot of land in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, Massachusetts, spanning the Charles River. Along with over 7 ...

. She died in 2013.

Selected works

*''Evaluation Research: Methods of Assessing Program Effectiveness'' (1972) *''Using social research in public policy making'' (1977) *"Theory-Based Evaluation: Past, Present, and Future" *"The many meanings of research utilization", ''Public administration review'' (1979) *''Evaluation: Methods for Studying Programs and Policies'' (1998) *"Have We Learned Anything New About the Use of Evaluation?", ''American Journal of Evaluation'' (1998)

Selected awards

*Myrdal Award, Evaluation Research Society

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Carol 2013 deaths 1927 births American women political scientists American political scientists Cornell University alumni Columbia University alumni Harvard Graduate School of Education faculty American women academics 21st-century American women