Evaluators must attend to the destructive forces of racialization and racism to contribute to social transformation. Thus, evaluators are called to center culture, context, equity, and social justice during each step of the evaluation process. Here, we focus on the step(s) in which evaluators define program quality and specify evaluative lines of…

Evaluators often lament that the general public does not understand what we do. Yet, there is limited empirical research on what the general public does know--and think--about program evaluation. This article seeks to expand our understanding in this domain by capturing views about evaluation from a demographically representative sample of the U.S…

The rise of the digital era has led to a decline in handwriting as the primary mode of communication, resulting in negative effects on handwriting literacy, particularly in complex writing systems such as Chinese. The marginalization of handwriting has contributed to the deterioration of penmanship, defined as the ability to write aesthetically…

This article aims to review and comment on the articles in this Special Issue and suggest directions for Singaporean evaluators to consider in the future. Based on the review, we found education evaluators in Singapore are familiar with up-to-date evaluation theories and approaches and successfully apply them. We also found that a substantial…

The merit of narrative film methods to support participatory approaches and professional development has been increasingly demonstrated by research in several fields and education. However, the use of digital storytelling and other film methods in evaluation remains largely unchartered territory. This article provides a case study of a digital…

In this study, we investigated the impact of the evaluation capacity building (ECB) efforts of an organization by examining the evaluation plans included in funding proposals over a 14-year period. Specifically, we sought to determine the degree to which and how evaluation plans in proposals to one National Science Foundation (NSF) program changed…

This article compares the purposes and content of the four foundational documents of the American Evaluation Association (AEA): the Program Evaluation Standards, the AEA Public Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation, the AEA Evaluator Competencies, and the AEA Guiding Principles. This reflection on alignment is an early effort in the third…

The ethical guidelines for the American Evaluation Association and the principles of community-based participatory evaluation both state the importance of equitable stakeholder involvement. Regardless of the evaluation approach, however, evaluators are often confronted with gatekeepers, or those who control the access to stakeholders, information,…

This article reports research that examined the meaning of two broad evaluator competency domains. The first is "situational awareness" (SA) that focuses on understanding the unique contexts of evaluations and their users/stakeholders. The second is "interpersonal competence" (IC) that focuses on social skills needed for…

More evaluators have anchored their work in equity-focused, culturally responsive, and social justice ideals. Although we have a sense of approaches that guide evaluators as to how they should attend to culture, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), we have not yet established an empirical understanding of how evaluators measure DEI. In this…

This article shares lessons from the field with program evaluations in the English-Speaking Commonwealth Caribbean (ESCC) region. The research highlighted that the challenges faced by evaluators working in the ESCC are quite similar to those experienced by evaluators elsewhere. However, the findings note the impact of the region's colonial past…

Evaluators are becoming increasingly aware that, to provide maximum benefit to the programs they evaluate, they must address the systems within which the programs work. However, evaluation practice is often influenced by beliefs and assumptions that are rooted in an understanding of these systems as stable and predictable. We identify four traps…

Given the ever-evolving role of school counselors and increasing demands placed on them in today's sociopolitical climate, proficiency in program evaluation is more important than ever as school counselors advocate for their role and for comprehensive school counseling program delivery in schools. This article presents a reexamination of the…

Expert intuition is increasingly considered to be a valid form of knowledge, and research has proven its effectiveness in judgment and decision making in various fields. Theorists seem to recognize the contributions of intuition within evaluative practice, but it has never been well-documented. This article presents a study on expert intuition,…

Professionalising outreach and evaluation work would enhance the quality and rigour of provision, benefit widening participation students and achieve regulatory requirements (Bowes et al. [2019]. "The National Collaborative Outreach Programme End of Phase 1 report for the national formative and impact evaluations." Office for Students;…