Using Social Psychology to Constructively Involve Colleagues in Internal Evaluation

Abstract

Internal evaluators can lead positive, helpful, promotive interactions among colleagues to make evaluation more appropriate, understandable, and accessible. As the motivations and abilities of non-evaluator colleagues are highly varied, interpersonal skills help facilitate cooperation and promote evaluation. Social interdependence theory from social psychology can assist with understanding teamwork and developing interpersonal competence. While the literature links social interdependence theory with evaluation, there is limited understanding of its application in practice. In this article, we share our internal evaluation experiences in three Australian nonprofit organizations to elucidate how we harnessed social connections and interpersonal dynamics to achieve cooperative goals. The purpose of this article is to share our process for using theory and literature to assist with reflecting, planning, and acting, around the way we interact with colleagues. Evaluators may find this process useful when considering how to personalize professional development around interpersonal competencies for evaluation.

Using Dissemination Research Approaches to Understand the Awareness, Adoption, and Use of The Program Evaluation Standards

“…Peer networks may hold promise as vehicles for dissemination of the standards and other guidance resources by bringing together groups of otherwise fairly autonomous evaluators to share a desire to improve their individual and collective capacity. For independent evaluators embedded within a community of practice, the peer-to-peer network structure may provide the positive interdependence, individual accountability, interaction, and opportunity to reflect on the group process and progress characteristic of cooperative teams (Rogers et al, 2021) that is needed to change professional behaviors in support of greater use of the standards, principles, and competencies.…”

Developing a monitoring and evaluation framework in a humanitarian non-profit organisation using agile methodology

“…In a traditional, non-agile approach, one staff member may be tasked with drafting an M&E framework, which may be reviewed by several colleagues, before being released to the broader team as a final version. Undertaking an agile approach facilitates greater collaboration with early input from frontline staff, enabling an iterative, deliberative approach, which works well with cooperative teamwork strategies (Rogers et al. , 2021) and helps ensure applicability to varied contexts.…”

Reflections on COVID-19 and internal evaluation in a humanitarian non-profit

“…As such, it is deeply relevant to evaluation. However, it has particular significance to internal evaluation where enduring organisational relationships can benefit from closer investigation to improve evaluative processes, outputs and outcomes over the long term ( Rogers et al, 2021 ). Examining our actions against this theory helped us analyse why things went well and what we could have done differently.…”

“…As well as drawing from the literature on inclusion and active engagement in participatory monitoring and evaluation (e.g., Kumar, 2002 ), these efforts would contribute to this literature through expanded experience collaborating through hybrid and online-only means. Additionally, rather than simply utilising social interdependence theory to guide our reflections, we would operationalise it using the practical strategies for more effective teamwork outlined by Rogers et al (2021) .…”