Eval Use TIG Week: Keiko Kuji-Shikatani on Using Evaluative Thinking to Support Evaluation Use

My name is Keiko Kuji-Shikatani, the current chair of the Evaluation Use Topical Interest Group (TIG), one of the original AEA TIGs. The Evaluation Use TIG was born of the interest in evaluation utilization in the 1970s, extending into both theoretical and empirical work on Use in the 1980s and 1990s, and to a broader conceptualization of use and influence in the 2000s. The Evaluation Use TIG is committed to understanding and enhancing the use of evaluation in a variety of contexts and to maximizing the positive influence of evaluation through both the evaluation process and the results produced.

Program evaluation began with the desire to seek information that can be utilized to improve the human condition. Use may not be apparent to those who are not internal to an organization since the process of using evaluation requires discussions that may be very sensitive in nature. This week’s AEA365 will examine how Evaluation Use TIG members are striving to support various efforts in diverse and complex contexts.

As for me, as an internal evaluator for the Ontario Ministry of Education, utilization of evaluation is something that is the norm in what I do every day in pursuit of reaching every student. The world in which our students are growing up and going to be leaders and learners throughout their lifetime is a complex and a quickly changing place. In order to support students so they are the best that they can be, those in the system needs to work smarter and use evaluative thinking to guide every facet of improvement efforts.

Rad Resource: Evaluative thinking is systematic, intentional and ongoing attention to expected results. It focuses on how results are achieved, what evidence is needed to inform future actions and how to improve future results. One cannot really discuss Evaluation Use without Michael Quinn Patton – check out (http://www.mcf.org/news/giving-forum/making-evaluation-meaningful).

Our work as internal evaluators involve continually communicating the value of evaluative thinking and guiding developmental evaluation (DE) by modeling the use of evidence to understand more precisely the needs of all students and to monitor and evaluate progress of improvement efforts.

Hot Tips: Check out how evaluation (http://edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teachers/studentsuccess/CCL_SSE_Report.pdf) is used to inform the next steps https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teachers/studentsuccess/strategy.html) and how that change can look like (http://edu.gov.on.ca/eng/research/EvidenceOfImprovementStudy.pdf).

In our work, the ongoing involvement of evaluators, who are intentionally embedded in program and policy development and implementation teams contribute to modeling evaluative thinking and guiding DE that build system evaluation capacity. The emphasis is on being a learning organization through evidence-informed, focused improvement planning and implementation.

Hot Tips: check out how evaluative thinking is embedded in professional learning (http://sim.abel.yorku.ca/ )or how evaluation thinking is embedded in improvement planning (http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/memos/september2012/ImprovePlanAssessTool.pdf).

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Evaluation Use (Eval Use) Topical Interest Group Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our Eval Use 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.

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