The Role of Intuition in Evaluative Judgment and Decision

Expert intuition is increasingly considered to be a valid form of knowledge, and research has proven its effectiveness in judgment and decision making in various fields. Theorists seem to recognize the contributions of intuition within evaluative practice, but it has never been well-documented. This...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe American journal of evaluation Vol. 41; no. 3; pp. 326 - 338
Main Authors Hurteau, Marthe, Rahmanian, Jeiran, Houle, Sylvain, Marchand, Marie-Pier
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.09.2020
Subjects
Bias
Decision Making
Evaluative Thinking
Evaluators
Expertise
Intuition
Novices
Pattern Recognition
Program Evaluation
Theory Practice Relationship
theory practice relationship
professional development
evaluation practice
decision making
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Summary:Expert intuition is increasingly considered to be a valid form of knowledge, and research has proven its effectiveness in judgment and decision making in various fields. Theorists seem to recognize the contributions of intuition within evaluative practice, but it has never been well-documented. This article presents a study on expert intuition, addressing the manner in which intuition is developed, as well as how it contributes to producing judgments in the specific context of program evaluation. In-depth, in-person interviews were conducted with eight novice evaluators and eight experienced evaluators in order to assess the contributions of experience and expertise. Two key observations emerged from interview analyses. The first was that intuition is developed through a long, complex, and demanding process in which reflective analysis of experiments, successes, and failures play an essential role; the second was that the development of intuition is fostered by expertise and experience.
ISSN:1098-2140
1557-0878
DOI:10.1177/1098214020908211