Perceived impact of case competitions on student evaluator competency development

The student panelists are participating in the American Evaluation Association’s (AEA) first evaluation student case competition in June 2023. The competition is an opportunity to integrate the knowledge learned from the experiential learning evaluation and research assignments in their doctoral program evaluation course sequence. The Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) and other international evaluation organizations have held similar student case competitions for over twenty years. Sheppard et al. (2019) and Nykiforuk et al. (2003) suggest that the CES student case competition plays a valuable role in the development and application of evaluator skills and competencies. AEA (2018) defines five competency domains, professional practice, methodology, context, planning and management, and interpersonal. The competition creates a new opportunity for competency development separate from other educational experiences like coursework, mentorship, fieldwork, and other professional activities (Dewey et al., 2008; Dillman, 2012). The student panelist will reflect on how the competition allowed them to unify and practice their learning in the five competency domains. Galport and Azzam (2017) found that evaluators identified a need for training in interpersonal and reflective practice areas of evaluator competencies. The student case competition involves teams of three to five students completing a case over seven hours. The competition structure allows for participants to develop skills across all competency domains, but interpersonal evaluator competencies play a significant role due to the team-based structure of the case competition. This study aims to describe the perceived impact of the case competition on the development of the AEA’s evaluator competencies among student participants.