From the Co-Editors: Evaluation Framing, Scoping, Impact Variation, and International Advances

Abstract

This issue of AJE covers eight articles, two sections, and a book review, where the contents collectively contribute to our understanding of framing, scoping, and impact variation through logic modeling, mapping, and creative analytic approaches. It includes some expansive scholarship and reflection on international advances in evaluation that promises to push the way we think about evaluation in comparative and international contexts.First, the lead article Reclaiming Logic Modeling for Evaluation: A Theory of Action Framework by Rebecca Woodland and Rebecca Mazur promises to be a well-read and cited article. Logic models are ubiquitous in evaluation; and developing them is useful to understanding not only basic program assumptions and outcomes but also for understanding program and policy complexities. Woodland and Mazur's article offers new ways of thinking about the processes and purposes of logic modeling, firstly by offering prevailing presumptions about their use and offering a framework for possibilities. The authors present the Logic Modeling Theory of Action Framework "that outline the needs and opportunities that compel and inspire us as evaluation educators, researchers, and practitioners to advance logic modeling for evaluation" (Woodland & Mazur, 2024, p. ##). In doing so, they provide resources, supports, and activities that evaluators could undertake at each evaluation stage.