Abstract
Evaluation of the outcomes and effects attributable to policy-making processes and their resulting policies has long been part and parcel of higher education practice and scholarship. Aiming to deconstruct the complexity of policy outcome assessment in the area of higher education, this chapter opens with a clarifica tion of major terms and contexts relevant to the problematic.
Terminological clarification is followed by presentation of major conceptual pre mises and the methodological challenges associated with the evaluation of impacts. Three challenges - causality, isolation of net effects, and utility in complex environments - are discussed in some detail, leading into a concluding outline of an agenda for future research.