Supporting the AEA Mission of Improving Evaluation Practice, Methods, and Use

Abstract

The growing emphasis on using evidence to inform decisions in public sector policy making has created both opportunities for and demands on the American Evaluation Association (AEA) in pursuing its mission “to improve evaluation practices and methods, increase evaluation use, promote evaluation as a profession, and support the contribution of evaluation to the generation of theory and knowledge about effective human action.” This article explores one approach to addressing these opportunities and demands—establishing a National Academy of Evaluation (NAE)—by describing suggestions and concerns that arose during an extended discussion of the opportunities and challenges of establishing an NAE that took place in the fall of 2014 via EvalTalk and at the 2014 national AEA conference. Initially, we felt some skepticism about the value and viability of an NAE, but subsequent experience with AEA’s Evaluation Policy Task Force (EPTF), with Julnes as an EPTF member and Newcomer as a liaison from AEA’s presidential rotation, made clear to us that the promise of an academy is strong, given the need for more capacity in supplying expert guidance on evaluation to governments, other organizations, and other evaluation stakeholders. Whether AEA should move forward in establishing an NAE, however, requires more than the promise of its contributions. This article seeks to summarize the issues and some consensus conclusions that emerged in earlier discussions so as to promote critical discussions, with insights from diverse perspectives, on the value of establishing some form of a national academy to advance the profession of evaluation.