The Story of the AEA Competencies Task Force (2015–2018)

Abstract

This chapter tells the story of American Evaluation Association' s (AEA' s) Competencies Task Force. During the 1990s, the AEA Board addressed issues related to the professionalization of the field, but chose not to move ahead with the development of competencies. Twenty years later, the global expansion of evaluation led to increasing professionalization around the world. In 2015, AEA' s Board created a Competencies Task Force to formally address the issue of developing evaluator competencies for the association. This chapter describes the threeyear development process: the Task Force formation, its processes, the multiple forms of feedback solicited and received, the eventual outcomes, and emerging follow-up strategies. It ends with a critique of the process by addressing what we believe the Task Force did well and what, in hindsight, it might have done differently.

Special Section Editors’ Note: A Focus on the Evaluation Profession

“…CTF coalesced a foundational, historical, international review of the Step 1 documents. With that task complete, CTF conducted Step 2 to create and validate what became the 2018 AEA competencies (Tucker et al, 2020).…”

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

“…After 4 years the analysis led to the publication of an article establishing essential competencies for program evaluators (ECPEs; . In the decade following the competencies' publication, professional associations around the world used them in various ways; for example, for personal or organizational reflection on evaluation capacity, as a structure for organizing professional development, or as input to their own sets of competencies (Tucker et al, 2020).…”

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

“…We recognized the importance of being systematic and therefore developed a process of comparison using the following steps. Three independent readers (this article's three authors) each brought experience and expertise to the process; two of us have been engaged in developing and studying competencies for over 20 years, and the third was an active member of the CTF and lead author of a chapter documenting the development process of the AEA Evaluator Competencies (Tucker et al, 2020). Our first task was to agree on a system to label the content of the AEA Public Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation (AEA, 2011) to make comparison possible, since this document is entirely in narrative.…”

“…Four grounding characteristics guided the competency development process; it was purposefully pragmatic, inclusive, intentional, and dynamic. In addition—and importantly—its activities built on “the strong base of competency work and professionalization already in place and evolving globally” (Tucker et al, 2020, p. 33). The Task Force approached this work within a three-step framework of increasing professionalization (Davies & Brümmer, 2015): Step 1: Reviewing foundational documents and reaching out globally to learn from others. Step 2: Using the knowledge learned from reviewing and reaching out to develop and initially validate a set of AEA Evaluator Competencies grounded in member engagement. Step 3: Defining how to use and recognize evaluator competencies. …”