SNA TIG Week: Maryann Durland on Measurements and Sociograms in Social Network Analysis – Why Both Are Important

Hi AEA 365er’s. I’m Maryann Durland, founding Chair of the Social Network Analysis (SNA) AEA Topical Interest Group (TIG) and an independent consultant with specialization in SNA. My topic in this SNA TIG series is about the importance of both measurements (numeric data) and sociograms (visual graphics) in SNA. Lessons Learned: The field of sociometrics …

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Susan Kistler on Storytelling Tools

I’m Susan Kistler, AEA’s Executive Director, and I contribute each Saturday’s post. It’s been a busy week here at AEA. October 1 was the cutoff for earlybird registration for Evaluation 2011, Kylie Hutchinson offered a great eStudy course on Effective Reporting (eStudy is now on hiatus until the new year), and the conference program is …

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Tysza Gandha and Katherine Ryan on Extending the Focus Group Method

Greetings to all! We are Tysza Gandha and Katherine Ryan from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With our colleagues at the Illinois Assessment and Accountability Project, we have been evaluating policy consequences. Like many evaluators, we rely on focus groups to gain a deeper and richer understanding of people’s experiences and perspectives in a …

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Agata Jose-Ivanina on Identifying and Evaluating a Program’s Costs

Greetings all! I am Agata Jose-Ivanina and I am a Senior Associate with ICF International, a research and evaluation firm headquartered near Washington, DC. As the budget debate has been heating up and educational agencies have to make hard choices, we have seen an increased demand to include a cost component as part of program …

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Gary Huang on Improper Payment Studies

Hi, I’m Gary Huang, a Technical Director and Fellow at ICF Macro, Inc. in Calverton, Maryland. My colleagues, Sophia Zanakos, Erika Gordon, Gary McQuown, Rich Mantovani, and I are presenting at AEA’s upcoming conference on improper payment (IP) studies. We conduct research and evaluation relating to benefit eligibility and payment errors under rubric of IP. …

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Jenell Holstead and Mindy Hightower King on Evaluating Out-of-School Time Activities

Greetings from the Midwest! We are Jenell Holstead (University of Wisconsin-Green Bay) and Mindy Hightower King (Indiana University). For the past eight years, we have evaluated 21st Century Community Learning after school programs both at the local level, as well as statewide initiatives in Indiana and Kentucky. This post discusses best practices for evaluating out-of-school …

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Susan Eliot on Evaluation Stories

I’m  Susan Eliot, an independent qualitative research and evaluation consultant in Portland Oregon. As an applied researcher, I’m continuously searching for creative yet rigorous qualitative approaches that fit my clients’ budgets and capabilities. I recently employed a method called the evaluation story to elicit feedback from elementary and middle school students enrolled in an AmeriCorps …

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Rakesh Mohan and Maureen Brewer on Successfully Navigating Through the Political Maze

Greetings from beautiful Boise!  We are Rakesh Mohan and Maureen Brewer from the Idaho legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations. Our post complements previous posts by Dawn Smart (8-30-11) and Tessie Catsambas (9-18-11). Last year, we were asked to evaluate the governance of EMS agencies in Idaho because there were concerns about the duplication of and …

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Susan Kistler on Unconferences and Open Space Technology

My name is Susan Kistler. I’m AEA’s Executive Director and I contribute each Saturday’s aea365 post. Last week, I attended an unconference on Data Visualization hosted by tech@state, a program of the U.S. Department of State’s Office of eDiplomacy. Both the format and the content proved to be transformative. First, let’s talk format – in …

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Ayesha Boyce, Maria Jimenez, and Gabriela Juarez on Presenting Cultural and Other Sensitive Evaluation Findings Through Skits

Greetings from Champaign, IL! We are Ayesha Boyce, Maria Jimenez, and Gabriela Juarez. We are all currently pursuing our Ph.D. in evaluation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. We have found as a multicultural evaluation team that sometimes sensitive topics such as race, class and gender are best presented through creative means. These types of …

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