Framing the future: Exploring the values that underpin the Australian Evaluation Society’s Evaluators’ Professional Learning Competencies
| Published date | 01 December 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1035719X241293807 |
| Author | Will Domvo,Amy M Gullickson,Lauren Wildschut |
| Date | 01 December 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Academic Articles |
Academic Article
Evaluation Journal of Australasia
2024, Vol. 24(4) 301–321
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1035719X241293807
journals.sagepub.com/home/evj
Framing the future: Exploring
the values that underpin the
Australian Evaluation Society’s
Evaluators’Professional
Learning Competencies
Will Domvoand Amy M Gullickson
The University of Melbourne, Australia
Lauren Wildschut
Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Abstract
In the last two decades, evaluator competency frameworks have become ubiquitous.
Many have been developed by reviewing the literature and engaging in various research
processes to ask evaluation practitioners what they do, in order to determine what
evaluators should know and be able to do. Due to this practice focused approach, the
underlying philosophical and theoretical assumptions of competencies are rarely
questioned. In this article, the authors explore this territory by categorising com-
petencies using two taxonomies. Mertens and Wilson’s 2018 Program evaluation theory
and practice provides a philosophical framework, and Schwandt & Gates’2021 Evalu-
ating and valuing in social research provides a theoretical framework. The authors apply
these frameworks to the three evaluation specific domains of the Australian Evaluation
Society (AES) Evaluators’Professional Learning Competency Framework as refined for
the Learn Evaluation Assessment Platform in 2020. Findings of this exploratory study
suggest that the AES’conception of evaluator competencies aligns primarily with
Mertens and Wilson’s pragmatist/neopragmatist paradigm and Schwandt and Gates’
expanded frame. The authors discuss implications of the results and propose ideas for
further improvement and testing of this research approach.
Corresponding author:
Will Domvo, The University of Melbourne, 100 Leicester St, VIC 3010, Australia.
Email: will.domvo@unimelb.edu.au
Keywords
evaluator competencies, evaluation taxonomy, evaluation theory, evaluation
framework, evaluation
What we already know
•Evaluator competency frameworks have become ubiquitous in evaluation in
the last decade.
•The AES published their evaluator competency framework in 2013.
•Many evaluation taxonomies classify evaluation practice and theory, and
these can be used to understand theoretical underpinnings of evaluation
materials.
The original contribution the article makes to theory and/
or practice
•Method provides a way to make the underlying philosophical and theoretical
assumptions of the AES Competency Framework explicit.
•Findings suggest that the AES Competency Framework promotes evaluation
characterised by an appraisal of values, context, stakeholders, and rigorous
research methods, but does not address First Nations cultural specificities.
•Tool used for this analysis could be refined for future research on any kind of
evaluation materials.
Introduction
Evaluator competency frameworks have become ubiquitous in the field of evaluation in
the last decade. The literature suggests that these frameworks may serve many
functions –they can be used to guide evaluators’professional development; they can be
used as a self-reflection tool for practitioners to improve their practice; they can help
advance evaluation research; and they can assist in professionalising the field (Lake,
2005;Stevahn et al., 2005). In 2013, the Australasian Evaluation Society (now the
Australian Evaluation Society, AES) published its Evaluators’Professional Learning
Competency Framework (AES Professional Learning Committee, 2013). To establish
this framework, the AES drew on competency frameworks from other voluntary or-
ganisations for professional evaluation such as the Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation
302 Evaluation Journal of Australasia 24(4)
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