Teaching of Evaluation
Cindy Shuman, PhD (she/her/hers)
Associate Dean for Research and External Funding
Kansas State University
Manhattan, Kansas, United States
Kelly McGinn, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Temple University
West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States
Krisanna Machtmes, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Ohio University
Ohio, Ohio, United States
Seema Mahato, Ph.D.
Evaluation and Assessment Manager
Washington University in St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Location: Room 203
Abstract Information: Teaching of evaluation happens in diverse contexts and formats. From evaluation certificate programs to a course in a degree program or a graduate degree focused on evaluation, teaching of evaluation happens across a spectrum in terms of breadth and depth of the evaluation knowledge being imparted. This session is designed to explore this landscape of teaching evaluation to generate a collection of stories that speak to the interests, ideas, and innovations around evaluation education. Our central question is: What are the common theories or concepts that form the content of most of teaching of evaluation efforts and how to effectively teach that content? Several sub-questions (mentioned in the relevance statement) will facilitate answering of this central question. It is expected that these stories shared during the session will facilitate the creation of a mind map in order to visualize these various perspectives and serve as a resource for educators.
Relevance Statement: Heightened levels of awareness about diversity, equity, and inclusion issues and the accompanying energy and volition for finding practical solutions to society’s wicked problems creates the need for critical or evaluative thinking on a large scale. Teaching of evaluation is an important platform where evaluative thinking is nurtured. Beyond inculcating evaluative thinking, teaching of evaluation enables acquisition and development of evaluation expertise that is the scaffold for operationalizing evaluative thinking. Hence, it is important to collect, synthesize and share effective practices and innovations in teaching of evaluation. Evaluation can be, and often is, framed, defined and/or implemented in distinct ways in different disciplines. Context is critical in evaluation, but instead of viewing disciplines as silos, we are interested in leveraging knowledge across fields such as education, public health, social work, public policy, and the humanities. The plan for the session is to provide a context to the attendees and then create think tank groups to discuss and generate insights on several themes related to our guiding questions. Our central question/focus is to understand the common theories or concepts that form the content of most of teaching of evaluation efforts and how to effectively teach that content. The sub-questions that will help unpack and answer the central question are: 1. What types of higher education courses fall under the umbrella of “Evaluation?” 2. What types of academic programs include Evaluation courses? And for what reasons are they included? 3. What content is covered in the various evaluation courses? 4. What type of text (e.g., books and articles) are used to teach the various content? 5. What types of assignments are used to teach the various content? 6. In what ways do instructor backgrounds vary? Post the brainstorming session, there will be sharing out of the insights to coalesce our understanding of the central question. The purpose of this session is to set the stage for a systematic study to collect stories about the interest and motivation for teaching evaluation. We envision that these stories illustrated via a mind map will help highlight the value of evaluation as a profession and strengthen the collective expertise of evaluators through robust training in evaluation theories, methodologies, and methods.