Evaluation failures: Case studies for teaching and learning [webinar]

In this webinar, three evaluators (Kylie Hutchinson, Benoit Gauthier, and E. Jane Davidson) share their real-life evaluation blunders and ways to incorporate their lessons learned into the classroom or personal practice.

This resource and the following information was contributed by Alice Macfarlan.

Authors and their affiliation

SAGE Publishing

Speakers: Kylie Hutchinson, Benoit Gauthier, and E. Jane Davidson

Key features

The webinar is in promotion of the book 'Evaluation failures: 22 tales of mistakes made and lessons learned' (edited by Kylie Hutchinson), and is an accessible overview of three of the book's chapters.

Benoit Gauthier discusses how he should have paid more attention to context and key stakeholders, Kylie Hutchinson shares lessons learnt about how (not to) present findings visually to stakeholders, and Jane Davidson reflects on evaluation scope creep.

How have you used or intend on using this resource?

I love learning about how people do evaluation well - but it's also really refreshing and valuable to hear about when evaluations don't go well, as the challenges described in the webinar are by no means unique to the speakers. 

Why would you recommend it to other people?

It's always good to be reminded that things don't always go to plan. I think particularly for young and emerging evaluators, these cases will provide useful insight - both into what not to do, but also into the fact that evaluations do sometimes 'fail', and that there are ways of dealing with and learning from failures.

For those involved in capacity strengthening in evaluation, this webinar is a useful teaching tool, especially as discussion questions are provided.