The Role of Intuition in Evaluative Judgment and Decision

Abstract

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.