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Promoting evaluation in youth character development through enhanced Evaluation Capacity Building: Empirical findings from the PACE Project
Author(s) -
Chauveron Lisa M.,
Urban Jennifer Brown,
Samtani Satabdi,
Cox Milira,
Moorman Leslie,
Hargraves Monica,
Buckley Jane,
Linver Miriam R.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
new directions for evaluation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.374
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1534-875X
pISSN - 1097-6736
DOI - 10.1002/ev.20447
Subject(s) - pace , general partnership , program evaluation , empirical research , capacity building , psychology , public relations , medical education , business , political science , medicine , economic growth , economics , public administration , philosophy , geodesy , finance , epistemology , geography
In this paper, we present empirical findings from a mixed‐methods study of an Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB) initiative called the Partnerships for Advancing Character program Evaluation (PACE) Project that applied the Relational Systems Evaluation (RSE) approach. We focused especially on how participation in this partnership‐based ECB program is associated with changes in attitudes and behaviors related to evaluation capacity and Evaluative Thinking. We used a repeated measures design with semi‐structured interviews and surveys to examine two research questions: (1) Do Program Professionals participating in PACE adopt Evaluative Thinking behaviors? And (2) Do Program Professionals participating in PACE demonstrate increased evaluation capacity, including improved attitudes about evaluation? We found that PACE successfully increased Program Professional's behaviors, attitudes, and capacity; in particular, participants overwhelmingly noted that the emphasis on Evaluative Thinking changed the way they think about and approach evaluation, such that evaluation is now more well‐integrated into their practice.