Professionalizing Evaluation: A Time-Bound Comparison of the American Evaluation Association's Foundational Documents

Abstract

This article compares the purposes and content of the four foundational documents of the American Evaluation Association (AEA): the Program Evaluation Standards, the AEA Public Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation, the AEA Evaluator Competencies, and the AEA Guiding Principles. This reflection on alignment is an early effort in the third step of professionalization: defining how to use and recognize evaluator competencies. The analysis intentionally focuses on content and reflects on the implications of the differences and similarities across documents. The comparison reveals important questions of interest at both the micro level (individual evaluator) and the macro level (evaluation). The article concludes with challenges, learnings, and proposed next steps of AEA's Professionalization and Competencies Working Group.

Meta-evaluation: Validating program evaluation standards through the United Nations Evaluation Quality Assessment (EQAs)

“…Currently, what constitutes a 'high-quality' evaluation is not determined by common guidelines but by the context of the evaluation. Consistent with prior research that highlighted the need for American Evaluation Association members to address varied definitions of core concepts in foundational documents (Tucker et al, 2023), UN Evaluation Group, American Evaluation Association, and Australian Evaluation Society would all benefit from adopting shared standards for meta-evaluation, moving beyond working in isolation. UN Evaluation Group and other VOPEs could gain from Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association's integration of social justice concerns into Program Evaluation Standards and Competencies.…”

“…The Program Standards were intended for educational evaluations. Additionally, there is a need to address social justice concerns in the evaluation process (Tucker et al, 2023;Symonette et al, 2020;Thomas & Campbell, 2021).…”

Navigating the challenges of policy evaluation

“…Unlike auditing or deliverology, which are relatively homogeneous, evaluation is a very heterogeneous practice in terms of methods or theoretical approaches (Alkin & Christie, 2023). This is why “the lack of a standardized understanding of the field […] of evaluation unavoidably creates a challenge for its professionalization efforts” (Tucker et al, 2023: 497).…”

Evaluator Education for the Twenty-First Century: The Centrality of Developing Evaluators’ Interpersonal Competencies

“…Therefore, there can never be one set of competencies carved in stone for all time and all places. As Tucker, Stevahn, and King (2022) put it, "Evaluation professionals must never consider any set of competencies, standards, or principles to be permanent … [I]t's helpful to envision these as written in pencil, ready for revision as needed" (p. 7).…”