Redesigning a University-Based Evaluator Education Program for Scholarship and Practice

Abstract

This paper describes the process that the faculty at the University of Minnesota used to redesign its graduate programs in evaluation. We build from the premise that evaluator education programs undergo periodic review to remain consistent with program goals and maintain alignment with competency taxonomies. With the retirement of a senior faculty member and the addition of a new junior faculty member, we decided the time had come to examine closely the existing MA and PhD curriculum. We describe our process for conceptualizing the program’s ultimate goals, examining course content, cross-referencing the courses with the AEA Competencies, and aligning all courses and processes with our revised programmatic goals. The result is a redesigned and streamlined curriculum to support evaluation practice for master’s students and both scholarship and practice for doctoral students.

Scoping recent investment in evaluation education in Australian universities

“…Research focussing on evaluation education emerged in 1976 and has focused on the American landscape, with Australia and Canada featuring in several studies (LaVelle, 2019; LaVelle & Johnson, 2022). From the key search terms identified in the methodology section, only 10 articles from the 25 collected were relevant to evaluation education.…”

“…To overcome these, they suggest ensuring evaluation programs are aligned with the professional association competencies, have practical experience, focus on evaluation theory and prepare students to teach evaluation to stakeholders LaVelle & Johnson, 2022).…”

“…LaVelle and Donaldson (2021) identify five key considerations facing evaluator education programs: aligning programs and courses with evaluator competencies, choosing core program courses, developing interuniversity collaborations, establishing and maintaining evaluation faculty, and ensuring evaluation graduate students flourish. To overcome these, they suggest ensuring evaluation programs are aligned with the professional association competencies, have practical experience, focus on evaluation theory and prepare students to teach evaluation to stakeholders (LaVelle & Donaldson, 2021; LaVelle & Johnson, 2022).…”

“…Similar to other universities, every Australian university is under increasing pressure to diversify their income streams and rationalise their product suite (Durrant & Eastmond, 1994; Harris & Alderman, 2022, this issue; LaVelle & Johnson, 2022; Phan, 2019). Therefore, consideration of how and when to enter a new discipline is a strategic executive decision that requires an evidence-based approach to ensure the endeavour is worthy of the investment (Alderman, 2022, this issue).…”

“…Also, in keeping with the themes of the special issue, as Forbes et al (2022, this issue) demonstrate, there is significant scope for qualified evaluators to work as internal evaluators within the Australian higher education sector. This article will be the start of a research journey to explore whether evaluation is a viable and meaningful discipline within higher education programs and contributes to earlier work undertaken by May et al (1986), Durrant and Eastmond (1994), and more recently, LaVelle (2019) and LaVelle and Johnson (2022). We apply the investment element of Alderman’s (2014) Continuous Learning Framework and adopt a ‘continuous improvement leading to continuous learning’ (Deming, 1986) perspective.…”