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…

Quality Assessment Frameworks (QAFs) are standardized templates that include pre-defined criteria, open questions, or a combination to assess the quality of evaluations. They support organizations to limit risks associated with poor-quality evaluation. Qualitative research focused on four QAFs shows that five dimensions of quality are assessed…

Social innovations (SIs) frequently bring previously unrelated actors, ideas, and practices together in new configurations with the goal of addressing social needs. However, the dizzying variety of definitions of SI and their dynamic, exploratory character raise dilemmas for evaluators tasked with their evaluations. This article is based on a…

Pressure on evaluators has been investigated recently by surveys in the USA, the UK, Germany, and Switzerland. This study compares the results of those studies regarding pressure on evaluators in different countries. The findings suggest that independence of evaluations does not exist for many respondents. Moreover, the person who commissioned the…

Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is gaining ground in evaluation circles, but the number of applications is still limited. In this article, we consider the challenges that can emerge during a QCA evaluation by drawing on our experience of conducting one in the field of development cooperation. For each stage of the evaluation process, we…

Evaluators can work with brief units of text-based data, such as open-ended survey responses, text messages, and social media postings. Online crowdsourcing is a promising method for quantifying large amounts of text-based data by engaging hundreds of people to categorize the data. To further develop and test this method, individuals were…

Treatment effect estimates from a "regression discontinuity design" (RDD) have high internal validity. However, the arguments that support the design apply to a subpopulation that is narrower and usually different from the population of substantive interest in evaluation research. The disconnect between RDD population and the…

The search for necessary and sufficient causes of some outcome of interest, referred to as "configurational comparative research," has long been one of the main preoccupations of evaluation scholars and practitioners. However, only the last three decades have witnessed the evolution of a set of formal methods that are sufficiently…

In experimental evaluations of health and social programs, the role of dosage is rarely explored because researchers cannot usually randomize individuals to experience varying dosage levels. Instead, such evaluations reveal the average effects of exposure to an intervention, although program exposure may vary widely. This article compares three…

Culturally responsive evaluation contests that Western-derived evaluation methods represent a universal truth and promotes approaches that reflect the local context. Taking this approach, we examine how the method of contribution analysis may be modified to reflect a different worldview. We reframe contribution analysis using a Confucian lens as…

Although investigations into evaluation theories, methods, and practices have been occurring since the late 1970s, research on evaluation (RoE) has seemingly increased in the past decade. In this review, 257 studies published in 14 evaluation-focused journals over a 10-year period (between 2005 and 2014) were identified as RoE and then classified…

Research on the evaluation of large-scale public-sector reforms is rare. This article sets out to fill that gap in the evaluation literature and argues that it is of vital importance since the impact of such reforms is considerable and they change the context in which evaluations of other and more delimited policy areas take place. In our…

This article describes the development and use of a rapid evaluation approach to meet program accountability and learning requirements in a research for development program operating in five developing countries. The method identifies clusters of outcomes, both expected and unexpected, happening within areas of change. In a workshop, change agents…

Although evaluators often use an interrupted time series (ITS) design to test hypotheses about program effects, there are few empirical tests of the design's validity. We take a randomized experiment on an educational topic and compare its effects to those from a comparative ITS (CITS) design that uses the same treatment group as the experiment…

Linking evaluation methods to the several phases of a program's life cycle can provide evaluation planners and funders with guidance about what types of evaluation are most appropriate over the trajectory of social and educational programs and other interventions. If methods are matched to the needs of program phases, evaluation can and should…