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Reflecting on Sources of Bias and Conflicts of Interest Several of the Program Evaluation Standards (U.1, U.4, P.6, A.8) and Guiding Principles (C.3 and C.4) are concerned with the importance of evaluations being honest and impartial, avoiding conflicts of interest and conducting evaluations with integrity. Yet, as research has shown, many evaluators do not believe […]

Protections to Human Subjects and the Role of Institutional Review Boards Both the Standards and the Guiding Principles emphasize that to behave ethically, evaluators must protect the rights of people from whom they collect data. Institu- tional Review Boards (IRBs) are committees of five or more peer researchers who review the data collection plans, or

The principle of Integrity/Honesty also mirrors many of the issues articulated in the Standards. It addresses ethical concerns regarding negotiations with clients and relevant stakeholders, conflicts of interest, sources of financial support, misrepre- sentation of findings, and consideration of methods. Let us highlight two issues here: Guiding Principle C.5 explicitly states, “Evaluators should not misrepresent

What are the ethical obligations of evaluators? We will briefly review the ethical components of the Program Evaluation Standards and the Guiding Principles here. The more complete text of both documents is presented in Appendix A. The Program Evaluation Standards. Before moving into a discussion of the Standards themselves, let us briefly describe how the

Ethical Standards in Evaluation Since the mid-1970s, the field of evaluation has been active in developing different ethical codes or standards. (See Fitzpatrick [1999] for a discussion of the history of ethical codes in evaluation and a comparison to codes in other disciplines.) Currently, the two most prominent codes for evaluation in the United States

What Kinds of Ethical Problems Do Evaluators Encounter? Studies of practicing evaluators reveal the types of ethical challenges that evalua- tors face. Morris and Cohn (1993) surveyed members of the American Evaluation Association and found that nearly two-thirds of the evaluators had encountered major ethical challenges in their evaluation work. Their analysis of the types

Here are a few of our suggestions for establishing and maintaining good com- munications during an evaluation: 1. In planning the evaluation—writing the proposal or preparing the contract—build in time for communication. Remember to include time for communication through meet- ings, meetings, and more meetings! Discuss evaluation plans and results orally with key groups first.

Establishing and Maintaining Good Communications As this discussion on working in a political context indicates, good evaluation work involves much more than knowing how to collect and analyze data. Our recom- mendations for working in a political environment often concern communicating with stakeholders. But, interpersonal skills and communication are important enough to merit a separate

Interacting with the Political System. Vestman and Conners (2006) describe three different positions in which evaluators may interact with the political system: 1. The evaluator as value-neutral. In this position, the evaluator tries to protect or separate the evaluation from politics in order to maintain its perceived legitimacy and objectivity. Evaluators are rational methodologists who

Political, Interpersonal, and Ethical Issues in Evaluation 69 needs, not more. As Carol Weiss has remarked, “Politics is the method we have as a nation to resolve differences and reach conclusions and decide policy issues. We don’t always like the way it turns out, but it’s an essential part of our system” (Weiss & Mark,