AEA365, the Tip-a-Day from the American Evaluation Association

Hello, I’m Ruqayyah Abu-Obaid, I hold a PhD in interdisciplinary evaluation, and economics is the lens I deliberately bring to evaluation theory and practice. My research examines how decisions about evaluation are made under constraints, and how economic concepts like opportunity cost and marginal value can sharpen both analysis and reporting. In this post, ...

Hi Everyone, my name is Najat Elgeberi, and I work as an evaluation specialist at the University of Nevada, Reno Extension. In this post, I highlight several mistakes evaluators should avoid when using graphs. When I first began analyzing data and turning findings into visuals, I assumed my job was to make charts look impressive. I used bright colors, crowded...

Hi Everyone, my name is Najat Elgeberi, Ph.D., and I work as an evaluation specialist and assistant professor for program evaluation at the University of Nevada Reno, Extension.

When evaluators create graphs, we often focus on the “big” decisions first: whether to use a bar chart, line chart, scatterplot, or dashboard. One of the most powerful desig...

Hello. I’m Arthur Hernandez, and I’ll admit something: a year ago, I was skeptical that AI had much to offer seasoned evaluators when it came to reporting. I’ve been writing evaluation reports for a long time, and I wasn’t convinced a machine could meaningfully improve a process I’d spent decades refining. I was partially right, and usefully wrong.

Hello. I’m Arthur Hernandez, Vice Chair of the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation. During my 40+ years of evaluation research and practice, I’ve watched our field cycle through hand-tabulated data, mainframe printouts, desktop publishing, infographics, and interactive dashboards. Each arrival was heralded as transformative. And to a degre...