Although collaboration is recognized as an effective means to address multifaceted community issues, successful collaboration is difficult to achieve and failure is prevalent. To effectively collaborate, collaborators must recognize the strengths and weaknesses within their own efforts. Using Mattessich and colleagues' work as a springboard,…

In 2012, the American Evaluation Association (AEA) added community psychology (CP) to its roster of topical interests groups (TIG). One of the highlights of the CP TIG program at the 2012 AEA Conference and the genesis of this "American Journal of Evaluation" Forum was a panel of accomplished community psychologists and evaluation…

The relationship between theory and practice, or between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge, is not a simple one, and rarely is it the case that theory is "applied" to practice. This paper aims to clarify the relationship by briefly discussing the nature of practical problems and the role that theoretical knowledge plays in…

Theory and practice are integrated in the human brain. Situation recognition and response are key to this integration. Scholars of decision making and expertise have found that people with great expertise are more adept at situational recognition and intentional about their decision-making processes. Several interdisciplinary fields of inquiry…

Both speakers at the Eleanor Chelimsky Forum on Theory and Practice in Evaluation pointed out the complexity and messiness of evaluation practice, and thus potential limits on theory and generalizable knowledge. The concept of reflective practice offers one way forward to build evaluation theory. Building generalizable knowledge about practice…

A synthesis of the state of the literature is discussed in this section of the Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB) forum organized around four critical questions: (1) What is ECB? (2) How can we make it happen? (3) How do we know it is happening? and (4) What is its impact? The authors argue that to move the field of ECB forward we need to envision…

The interest and effort in evaluation capacity building (ECB) continues to grow enormously among organizations, funders, and evaluators. Yet a research synthesis of the ECB literature (Labin, Duffy, Meyers, Wandersman, & Lesesne, 2012) revealed major limitations in the science and practice of ECB. This forum on ECB, which includes two past…

Though several excellent literature reviews and research syntheses have been conducted, and thoughtful frameworks and models have been proposed, I believe it is time for the evaluation field to tackle the "hard stuff" of evaluation capacity building (ECB). This entails engaging staff in ECB activities, building the evaluation capacity of…

The Labin et al. logic model describes the why, how, what, and potential outcomes of evaluation capacity building (ECB). Getting To Outcomes offers a frame and empirical results for operationalizing the ECB logic model of Labin et al. and for deepening the science and practice of ECB.

Although some argue that distinctions between "evaluation" and "development evaluation" are increasingly superfluous, it is important to recognize that some distinctions still matter. The severe vulnerabilities and power asymmetries inherent in most developing country systems and societies make the task of evaluation…

In this paper, the author argues that evaluation theory and practice interact insufficiently today, even though early evaluation theorists expected them to be closely intertwined. She views this limited connection as the result of differing interests on the part of theorists and practitioners, differing frequencies of dissemination, and differing…

Although the general conceptual basis appeared far earlier, theory-driven evaluation came to prominence only a few decades ago with the appearance of Chen's 1990 book "Theory-Driven Evaluations." Since that time, the approach has attracted many supporters as well as detractors. In this paper, 45 cases of theory-driven evaluations, published over a…

In this paper we describe an evaluation training program sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by Duquesne University and OMG Center for Collaborative Learning designed to meet the challenge of developing a cadre of diverse evaluation professionals, specifically those from traditionally underrepresented or underserved…

Evaluation scholars have long called for research on evaluation to provide an empirical basis for improving its theory and practice. Although calls to investigate evaluation have struck a chord in some quarters of the evaluation community, with the exception of research in the area of evaluation use, these calls have been infrequently answered.…

Over the past two decades, there has been tension underscoring the nature, role, and importance of theory in the evaluation field. Some notable evaluation scholars contend that there is little need for evaluation theory and that good evaluative practice can occur with little or no regard to evaluation theory. Yet, others maintain that evaluation…