This article describes three challenges encountered during a developmental evaluation and explains how these were addressed from the evaluators' perspective. The evaluation was conducted to support the implementation of a three-year educational technology leadership project funded by the Alberta provincial government. The developmental evaluation…

Evaluators know they are supposed to identify and engage with stakeholders. What happens when the client has a very narrow concept of the meaning of evaluation? What happens when the primary stakeholders, including the client, disappear just as the evaluation gets started? First, it is important to acknowledge the challenge, then develop a…

The clash between Western and Indigenous ways of knowing has been epitomized by the "parachuting model" of the Western researcher who drops onto the reservation, collects data, and leaves, never to be heard from again. The strengths of indigenous science, for example, observation and contextual factors, are either ignored or…

How can indigenous evaluators implement culturally competent models in First Nations communities while ensuring that government grant evaluation requirements are met? Through describing the challenges in one tribal community in the United States, this article will discuss how American Indian/Alaska Native substance abuse prevention programs are…

The American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), comprising 34 American Indian tribally controlled colleges and universities, has undertaken a comprehensive effort to develop an "Indigenous Framework for Evaluation" that synthesizes Indigenous ways of knowing and Western evaluation practice. To ground the framework, AIHEC engaged…