Checklists

BASIC CONCEPTS

A checklist is defined here as a list of factors, properties, aspects, components, criteria, tasks, or dimensions, the presence or amount of which are to be separately considered in the performance of a certain task. There are many different types of checklist, although all have at least one nondefinitional function in common—that of being a mnemonic device. This function alone makes them useful in evaluation, as the nature of evaluation calls for a systematic approach to determining the merit, worth, and so on, of what are often complex entities. Hence, a list of the many components or dimensions of performance of such entities is frequently valuable.

Checklists are of various kinds: At the bottom of the checklist pecking order is the eponymous laundry list, which is almost entirely a mnemonic device and nonetheless useful for that. Notice that the order in which one calls on the items in a laundry list does not affect the validity of the list: We can start by entering on the list whatever items are at the top of the laundry pile. However, the entry of entities into the right place on the list is crucial to avoid the equivalent of key-boarding errors in empirical data entry. Also, the grouping of items as the list is being constructed is often quite important: For example, shirts with colors that may bleed need to be kept separate from white shirts. Note that a real laundry list is not an evaluative list, but plenty of “laundry lists” are used in evaluation, and one of these is discussed later.

Next is the sequential checklist, where the order does matter. The first kind of these is what we might call the strongly sequential kind, wherein the sequencing (of some or all checkpoints) must be followed to get valid results. One example of this is the preflight checklist, whose use is compulsory, not merely recommended, for the flight crews on aircraft carrying hundreds of thousands of passengers a day. It is sequential because, for example, the accuracy of the reading of instrument A depends on whether or not the setting on instrument A has been zeroed, so one [Page 54]must do the setting before the reading. The use of the preflight checklist is evaluative because it is designed to provide support for the evaluative conclusion that the plane is in good enough condition to fly safely. Many sequential checklists, however, are not intrinsically evaluative, although they might nevertheless be used in the course of an evaluation. Flowcharts often imply one or more sequential checklists, but they are often a better way to represent inference chains that involve extensive conditionals (i.e., “if-then” statements), as well as sequences.

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