Explicitly integrating interpersonal skills in the evaluation curriculum

Abstract

Interpersonal skills are an essential element of evaluators’ work, particularly when evaluators aim to affect the understanding and use of evaluation to make changes in the programs and policies we are evaluating. In this chapter, we provide a brief background on interpersonal skills in the evaluation literature, situating these competencies as essential in making evaluators facilitators of change, and highlight evaluation education's lack of explicit training in interpersonal skills. We then share our experiences with a standalone course for evaluators on interpersonal skill development. We conclude with insights into how evaluation educators can integrate activities focused on developing interpersonal skills into their own evaluation courses.