Cultural Issues in Evaluation Studies of Middle Eastern Higher Education

Middle Eastern candidates for higher degrees often set out with proposals which include a significant element of evaluation of aspects of higher education. These may raise cultural issues. Fourth generation evaluation procedures take the cultural context seriously. This is likely to throw up potentially important issues for candidates and their supervisors. This paper illustrates these matters in the current context of Middle Eastern higher education. It discusses the role of evaluation studies in this field, together with issues which candidates and their supervisors may confront when carrying out such research studies there. National cultures may be approached as sites of cultural contestation. Some forms of evaluation research have a role to play in this