Ed Eval TIG Week: Educational evaluation: A Diverse Field of Inquiry by Kelly Murphy

Hello! I am Kelly Murphy, chair of the  PreK–12 Educational Evaluation Topical Interest Group (TIG)  and a senior research scientist at Child Trends. Welcome to our TIG’s sponsored AEA365 week! This week we are sharing lessons learned, evaluation tips, and resources for evaluators who work in PreK–12 educational evaluation.

When people think about the educational evaluation field, often the first thing that comes to mind is student achievement. And while many educational evaluators do focus on this critical area, educational evaluators also engage in evaluations related to such diverse topics as health and mental health, school climate and student safety, integrated student supports, and professional development and training of educators.

Across such a range of evaluations, PreK–12 evaluators use a wide array of quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods, engage a diverse group of stakeholders in collaborative and participatory evaluations, and build and test evaluation theory. Our evaluations involve diverse populations, including youth of color, children with disabilities, youth involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, and children living in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Given the diversity of our field, we know that our work as educational evaluators likely intersects with the work that you do. Throughout this week, we will share insights and tips from our work, but would love to hear and learn more about the work of other AEA members. We’d also love to learn about the evaluation contexts in which you practice, the stakeholder groups you engage, and your various interest areas.

Rad Resources:

Reach out to our TIG’s Leadership Team on social media or at PreK12.Ed.Eval.TIG@gmail.com!

• TIG Website: http://comm.eval.org/prk12/home
• Facebook: We have migrated conversations from our old community page to our GROUP page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/907201272663363/. Please come join our group, as we use Facebook to supplement our website and to communicate with each other, share ideas and resources, and just get to know friends, colleagues, and newcomers who have similar interests. Anyone who visits the page is welcome to post and share other links and resources with the group.
• LinkedIn: Search for us on LinkedIn as PreK-12 Educational Evaluation TIG. This is a members-only group, so please send a request to join in order to see the content.
• Twitter: We are tweeting with the user name PreK-12 Ed. Eval. Follow @PK12EvalTIG at https://twitter.com/PK12EvalTIG.

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Ed Eval TIG Week with our colleagues in the PreK-12 Educational Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our Ed Eval TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.