Assistant Professor University of Minnesota, United States
Evaluation theory has been described in many ways over the years from the inquiry methods that evaluators use to positioning evaluation as individual/organizational/systems interventions to the philosophical umbrella “evaluation theory describes almost everything evaluators care about.” Scholars and researchers alike have sought tools to represent explicit and implicit theories of practice to clarify and draw meaningful distinctions between them. In recent years, scholars have moved towards using metaphors and stories to communicate about theory such as tree metaphors, rivers, transportation systems, and even stories about children trying to understand what their parents do. This presentation will share an overview of parts of the histories of evaluation theory with a focus on making theory communicable and accessible. It will conclude with a call for conceptual and empirical work on evaluation theory to better guide—and learn from—contemporary evaluation practice.
