Collaborative, Participatory & Empowerment Evaluation
John Baek, PhD (he/him/his)
Senior Education Evaluator
NOAA Office of Education
Burlington, Vermont, United States
John Baek, PhD (he/him/his)
Senior Education Evaluator
NOAA Office of Education
Burlington, Vermont, United States
David Fetterman, PhD (he/him/his)
President and Professor
Fetterman & Associates
HADLEY, Massachusetts, United States
Susan Wolfe, PhD (she/her/hers)
CEO / Community Consultant
Susan Wolfe and Associates, LLC
Grand Prairie, Texas, United States
Location: Room 309/310
Abstract Information: Artificial Intelligence is here to stay and has recently taken a bold new step into our lives. Specifically, with the introduction of ChatGPT4, Bing, and Bard, we have programs that can highlight or summarize vast amounts of information on the internet for us and produce a summary of that inquiry in seconds. It can write useful evaluation questions for us, shaped by our prompts. Community members conducting their evaluations (with the assistance of an evaluation coach) can generate useful literature searches, logic models, and community surveys. It can write SAS code, and transform sketches on napkins into web pages. There are caveats to be certain and recommended guidelines and safeguards. However, this session will highlight real-world useful applications to evaluation and generate new ideas together in real-time.
Relevance Statement: We need to be in front of the narrative and use of artificial intelligence. It is here to stay and already has a life of its own. We need to mine it to maximize our use in evaluation and guide community members who may choose to use it as they conduct their evaluations. Chat4 GPT and Wordtune are powerful tools that may put many people out of business, just as the old-fashion telephone operators were displaced by more modern telephony. We, as evaluators, may be replaced if we do not harness this tool to minimize our more manual and laborious tasks and maximize our potential. The fear generated by this new tool is similar to the reactions to stakeholder involvement approaches, like empowerment evaluation, being introduced to the field. It is better to stay in front of the conversation, shape it with a focus on use, and also remain aware of the caveats to its use and the necessary safeguard. We can not afford to miss this technological train, because it is already here and we can climb on board or be left behind.