Some Aspects of the Development of Evaluation in Austria

The article tries to reconstruct the development of evaluation in Austria in the last decades and to analyze the contributions of the Association for Evaluation DeGEval. The situation is discussed in four different areas: evaluation of institutions of higher education, school evaluation, evaluation within the health sector and evaluation of politics in research, technology and innovation. There are big differences between those areas in respect to intensity of evaluation, legal obligation of evaluation, research designs and methods of evaluation. In none of these areas the Association for Evaluation DeGEval plays an important part. The standards for evaluation, developed by the DeGEval are seldom used as point of reference. Consequences from this disappointing situation are suggested which may be discussed in the future within DeGEval.