Dear friends, John LaVelle (UMN) and Jennifer Billman (HACC) here again to wrap up this week’s Theories of Evaluation series of posts. First off, we are grateful to all the week’s contributors for their reflections on evaluation theory and how theory shows up in their practice. We are also grateful for their honesty about some …
Hi, I’m Eric Einspruch, an AEA member since 1991, and one of the founders and a past President of the Oregon Program Evaluators Network . I am the Principal of ELE Consulting, LLC, which provides research, evaluation, and technical assistance services that balance rigor and real-world constraints to generate meaningful and actionable results. I have also taught graduate-level program …
Hi everyone! My name is Elizabeth (Liz) DiLuzio, Lead Curator and sometimes writer for AEA365. I am an evaluator and educator who has conducted evaluations and built capacities with non-profits, government entities, and foundations from New Hampshire to Nevada. Today, I want to talk about a less discussed but incredibly helpful and fulfilling approach to …
Hi, my name is Aaron Kates, I am a recent graduate of the Interdisciplinary PhD in Evaluation Program at Western Michigan University. I live in South Bend, Indiana and work as a consultant with EffectX, an independent evaluation firm. Today I will be sharing a few resources I found about a topic I learned about …
Hi Everyone! Dylan Felt (she/her) here from the Evaluation, Data Integration, and Technical Assistance (EDIT) Research Program at Northwestern University. Today, I’m excited to be sharing a little bit about Critical Theory and why it matters so much in evaluation theory and practice. If evaluation theory is “who we are” (Shadish, 1998), then Critical Theory …
Hello! My name is Marshall Young, I am a first-year doctoral student at the University of Tennessee Knoxville in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Department pursuing a degree in Evaluation, Statistics, and Methodology. One area I am interested in is evaluation theory and how it relates with practice. Although I am relatively new to …
Dear friends, Our names are John LaVelle (UMN) and Jennifer Billman (HACC). We are the co-chairs of the Theories of Evaluation TIG, and it is our pleasure to introduce this week of AEA365 posts on evaluation theory. First, we acknowledge that theory, and what we mean by theory, can be confusing as “theory” can mean …
Hi, I am Sara Vaca (Independent Evaluator and Saturday’s contributor to this blog). One day some months ago I tweeted that this book by Michael Patton (Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods: Integrating Theory and Practice) was solving two thirds of my evaluation doubts. “What is the other third?” he replied. And he left me thinking. …
Sharing My Top 10 Evaluation Doubts by Sara Vaca Read More »
Hi Everyone! My name is Cherie Avent, and I am a second year Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina Greensboro with a focus on program evaluation and research methods. I have been fortunate to work on diverse evaluation projects in which the faculty allow students to lead and select the theory that would …
Hello all, My name is Justin Long and I am a 4th year M.S./PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I was always told to use methods and the evaluation theory that fit the context. If an evaluation is better served through a participatory evaluation then don’t force an deliberative-democratic evaluation approach. …
