Over the past few decades, evaluation scholars have depicted the growing landscape of evaluation theory in various ways. This presentation considers the benefits and limitations of different visualizations used by evaluation scholars, including the Evaluation Theory Tree (Christie & Alkin, 2004), the Table of Evaluation Models (Foss Hansen, 2005), the Periodic Table of Evaluation (Vaca, 2018), and the Evaluation Metro Map (Lemire, 2020), among others. The visual strategies used in these representations of evaluation theory can be viewed as different ways of telling the story of evaluation, reflecting each author’s background and personal experience with evaluation. The presentation concludes with some reflections on the implications of visualizing evaluation theory for the practice and profession of evaluation.
