American Journal of Evaluation

Psychological theory suggests that evaluators’ individual values and traits play a fundamental role in evaluation practice, though few empirical studies have explored those constructs in evaluators. This paper describes an empirical study on evaluators’ individual, work, and political values, as well as their personality traits to predict evaluation practice and methodological orientation. The results suggest evaluators value benevolence, achievement, and universalism; they lean socially liberal but are slightly more conservative on fiscal issues; and they tend to be conscientious, agreeable, and open to new experiences. In the workplace, evaluators value competence and opportunities for growth, as well as status and independence. These constructs did not statistically predict evaluation practice, though some workplace values and individual values predicted quantitative methodological orientation. We conclude by discussing strengths, limitations, and next steps for this line of research.

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, or resources. Gatekeepers limit both the participation of key community members and, therefore, the exchange of relevant information related to the evaluation—a process called gatekeeping. Little research attention has been placed on studying gatekeeping, resulting in a dearth of knowledge about the influence of gatekeeping on stakeholder-engaged evaluations and social-structural dynamics that potentially perpetuate gatekeeping practices. In this article, we propose a gatekeeping influence theory grounded in the findings from 14 interviews. With a constructed theory of gatekeeping, we document the emergent social-structural and relational dynamics involved in stakeholder-engaged evaluation, with a focus on evaluations that include community partners and members.

There is a lack of instructional literature on how to conduct a feminist evaluation to highlight and transform systemic issues in gendered and intersecting power relations. Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) enables a process for conducting community-driven, -led and -owned feminist evaluations that drive social justice actions. By undertaking a critical review of existing literature, this article presents guiding principles and practices in how to conduct a feminist evaluation using FPAR. These principles and practices provide a framework for those who are seeking an evidence base for transformative social justice action in communities, particularly those who are working with complexity in systems-change interventions with multiple stakeholders.

This paper unpacks our efforts as external evaluators to work toward decolonizing our evaluation practice. Undertaking this writing exercise as a form of reflective practice demonstrated that decolonization is much more complex than simply translating materials, organizing locals to collect data, and building participants’ capacity around Western modalities. While this complexity is clear in the decolonization literature, practice-based examples that depict barriers and thought processes are rarely presented. Through this paper, we deconstruct our deeply held beliefs around what constitutes good evaluation to assess the effectiveness of our decolonizing approach. Through sharing our critical consciousness-raising dialoguing, this paper reports our progress thus far and provides information and provocations to support others attempting to decolonize their practice.

Empowerment is a concept that has become increasingly used over recent years. However, little research has been undertaken into how empowerment can be evaluated, particularly in the case of young people. The aim of this article is to present an inventory of dimensions and indicators of youth empowerment. The article describes the various phases in the construction and validation of the inventory. These phases were (1) a contrast of the inventory of dimensions and indicators against specialized published writings on youth empowerment; (2) the validation of the resulting inventory by experts; and (3) a contrast with young people through four participatory evaluation processes and six life stories. The tool is scientifically and practically useful and enables the impact of youth empowerment programmes to be evaluated; it also serves to plan and implement socio-educational processes aimed at influencing the empowerment of young people.

In this article, we discuss the methodological implications of data and theory integration for Theory-Based Evaluation (TBE). TBE is a family of approaches to program evaluation that use program theories as instruments to answer questions about whether, how, and why a program works. Some of the groundwork about TBE has expressed the idea that a proper program theory should specify the intervening mechanisms underlying the program outcome. In the present article, we discuss in what way data and theory integration can help evaluators in constructing and refining mechanistic program theories. The paper argues that a mechanism is both a network of entities and activities and a network of counterfactual relations. Furthermore, we argue that although data integration typically provides information about different parts of a program, it is the integration of theory that provides the most important mechanistic insights.

Free-listing is a quick, semi-quantitative methodology commonly used by anthropologists to uncover information within a cultural domain. In this method note, we review how anthropologists have used free-listing in a variety of research settings. We then apply the social-ecological framework to describe how free-listing can be used for formative, process, outcome, and impact stages of program evaluation. Each type of evaluation includes a set of example free-list prompts to help researchers begin using this tool. We propose that free-listing is a beneficial data collection method in program evaluation. The free-listing method has identified barriers to treatment within our own work with clients recovering from either substance use disorder or opioid use disorder and has aided in providing flexible, individualized services. We conclude by providing recommendations for collecting free-list data and demonstrating the ease of computing free-list results by providing instructions and an example on how to analyze free-list responses.