On a summer morning, after several attempts to interview clients for an evaluation project, I arrived with a social worker at an overnight shelter. Finally, we had located Jules, who wanted to share her experiences with the program I was learning about. When we approached her and her friends, we noticed that she was sipping from a bottle of vodka.

When you are asked to conduct an evaluation for a program it can be like shopping for a bike - there are various types, sizes and budgets. Designing an evaluation that meets your stakeholders’ needs begins with a scoping process. There are a number of questions that you should ask to scope an evaluation, but ultimately scoping an evaluation focuses on purpose.

Sometimes online resources just aren’t enough. Some questions call for discussion, for a second opinion – a coach. That’s why Eval Academy is launching its new evaluation coaching service.

Evaluators have several options for transcribing audio from interviews, including voice-to-text software, outsourcing, and doing it ourselves. If you are taking the DIY approach, here are four tips to get you transcribing like a pro!

Evaluations are inherently political, which means they are fraught with ethical choices and decisions along the way. There have been many instances throughout my career where I faced an ethical dilemma - here are some things that have helped me silence the devil on my left shoulder and figure out the right thing to do.

Here, I share solutions to two challenges you are likely to come across while entering survey data: 1) coding complex question types and 2) dealing with unclear responses. Addressing these challenges will require some advanced coding that I did not cover in my first article.

When entering survey data, it is important that it is accurate, easy to analyze, and fast. Use these tips to prevent mistakes from the beginning.

The most exciting part about conducting a survey is seeing the results – finally your hard work has come to fruition, and you get to hear what everybody had to say! But before you can get to that step, you need to transform the stack of paper surveys on your desk into useable data.

In this article, I share my three-step system for making survey data entry as easy and painless as possible, which comes from my experience designing, entering, and analyzing survey data.

Evaluation questions focus data collection. They are what our stakeholders need to answer. When they have the answer to these questions, they can tell their stories. But it can be challenging to write questions at just the right level, that will provide guidance for choosing methods and developing data collection tools, and will actually yield the information to satisfy stakeholders.

Like Yoda, Michael Quinn Patton is revered for his wisdom and his power to inspire thinking differently about evaluation ideas. And while he isn’t a small, green humanoid alien there are striking similarities between the two (that go beyond the bald head and unique sweaters).

Whether due to global pandemics, restricted travel budgets, or stakeholders flung across the world, evaluators should be prepared to facilitate virtual meetings or sessions. We've taken the guesswork out of how to facilitate a great virtual session and have rounded up our best tips and tricks.

Up until one month ago my evaluation experience was firmly rooted in Canada. Like many young (ish) evaluators, I wanted to get international experience – more specifically I wanted to take on the challenge of doing evaluation work in a developing country. I would soon find out that I was incorrect in my optimism to copy and paste my evaluation perspective as well as my packing list.

This step-by-step guide is focused on one-on-one 30 minute telephone interviews. However, many of the tips shared can be applied to in person or group interviews, and interviews of differing time lengths and research interests.

Here are the six six C’s that make a good evaluator: competent, credible, curious, communicative, creative, and common-sense oriented.