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AbstractThis chapter presents the Board‐approved 2018 American Evaluation Association (AEA) Evaluator Competencies. It begins by introducing and briefly explicating each of the five competency domains—professional practice, methodology, context, planning and management, interpersonal—then details the specific competencies that comprise each domain. The chapter continues by identifying and discussing persistent member concerns that emerged across all forms of member feedback during the development process. It concludes by naming three broad areas of potential use of the competencies, each of which is the subject of a chapter in Part II.

AbstractThis chapter introduces interactive evaluation practice (IEP) and its potential for grounding thinking about the foundational nature of interaction in evaluation studies and the role of facilitation in this process. It begins by defining key terms and elaborating specifically on IEP as an evaluator orientation for grounding and guiding decisions, actions, and reflections—all leveraged toward conducting meaningful studies. It then presents an evaluator's dozen of strategies useful for facilitating interaction among stakeholders to accomplish targeted aims and concludes by illustrating how evaluators can successfully facilitate these strategies in practice.

AbstractThis chapter considers next steps in the development and use of evaluator competencies in the United States and globally. It begins with a brief grounding in definitions, then applies the framework of adaptive action (Eoyang & Holladay, 2013), asking "What?" to first describe the current status of evaluator competencies, "So what?" to discuss the implications of that status, and finally "Now what?" to identify potential actions that might attend to the complexity of change in the field of evaluation. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc., and the American Evaluation Association.

Evaluators almost inevitably experience conflict in the course of conducting evaluation studies. This article first presents two theoretical frameworks from social psychology - conflict strategies theory and constructive conflict resolution theory - useful for constructively managing conflict in evaluation settings. Second, we discuss theory-derived skills related to structuring cooperative goals and tasks in evaluation studies as well as how to use integrative negotiation procedures to address disputes that arise during the evaluation process. Finally, we explain how these theories can provide evaluators with a lens through which to analyze evaluation contexts, thereby helping them to make wise decisions for effective evaluation practice.

Darwich (2020) asked "What Kind of Citizens Do Educators Hope Their Students Become?" in her response to "Storypath: A Powerful Tool for Engaging Children in Civic Education" (McGuire et al., 2019). She argued that civics should be rooted in social justice grounded by critical civic empathy, which requires focusing on power and privilege given persistent disparities in caring for all people within our democracy. We agree and here further emphasize the importance of dismantling systems of oppression that block efforts to advance this goal. We also recognize pragmatic complexities in elementary school classrooms that require teacher professional judgment to create conditions for success. These include attending to diverse developmental needs of learners, classroom time constraints, and instructional standards that do not explicitly focus on social justice. We describe how the teacher in McGuire et al. navigated these challenges and call for systemic change to support teachers in routinely engaging all children in experiential civic learning grounded by critical civic empathy.

This article explains why elementary school children need civic education, identifies common obstacles that frustrate efforts, then describes how the Storypath approach can provide all students with opportunities for powerful civic learning. An actual application in a culturally diverse fourth-grade classroom illustrates how children grappled with Seattle's affordable housing issue as they created and enacted Storypath's five components, namely setting, characters, context, critical incidents, and concluding event. It also demonstrates how Storypath effectively integrates social studies content, literacy skills, and social-emotional learning (SEL) through cooperative small-group episodes that produce meaningful and memorable lived experiences for students engaged in civic discourse and democratic decision-making. The article concludes by listing and explaining how Storypath nurtures multiple positive outcomes. These include (a) providing a feasible framework for organizing complex curricula; (b) stimulating imagination, motivation, investment, and commitment to learning; (c) engaging rigorous discussion for cognitive growth; (d) embodying authentic teaching and learning; (e) grounding effective cooperative learning; (f) supporting successful curriculum integration; (g) promoting accomplishment of national and state standards; (h) enabling individual differentiation for success; (i) developing civic capacity; (j) cultivating transfer of learning within and outside of classrooms; and (k) furthering the civic mission of schools.

AbstractThe ultimate goal of using the 2018 AEA Evaluator Competencies is effective program evaluation practice. This chapter suggests how the competencies can be used to enhance professional practice by individual evaluators, organizations/institutions, and evaluation associations. Individual use includes self‐assessing expertise, pursuing professional development, and using common evaluation language. Organizational use includes guiding internal evaluations or university evaluator education programs and curricula, seeking external assistance, and cultivating institutional learning. Association use includes sponsoring professional development, credentialing or certifying evaluators, and assessing competence through measurement or some other form of documentation such as a practice‐based portfolio. All of these uses hold potential to further professionalize the field of program evaluation.

AbstractThe effectiveness of a conflict resolution and peer mediation program in a suburban Canadian secondary school was examined. Subjects were forty‐two ninth‐grade English students heterogeneous in academic achievement. A pretest‐posttest control‐group experimental design was employed. Students randomly assigned to the experimental condition spent ten hours studying a literature unit into which conflict resolution training had been integrated. Students randomly assigned to the control condition studied the identical literature unit for ten hours without conflict resolution and peer mediation training. Significant differences between treatment groups occurred in academic achievement and retention of academic learning, knowledge and retention of the conflict resolution procedure, application of the procedure in a conflict situation, and attitudes toward conflict.