Focusing, Situating, and Grounding Micro–Level Evaluation Field Experiences

Abstract

Evaluator training field experiences seek to reinforce applicable content knowledge and promote applied skills. For students, even a small-scale field experience focusing on limited components of a larger evaluation process can seem particularly challenging. Students often do not recognize the relevance of established evaluation resources capable of focusing, situating, and guiding their early professional practice efforts. For example, anticipating relevant evaluation standards and ethical principles and understanding the potential guidance they offer—in the context of student’s field experiences—requires more than their cursory acknowledgment. This article identifies the challenges that students encountered with course-embedded, small-scale field experiences and introduces the development and application of an instructional tool to help them: (a) more strategically focus evaluation field experiences; (b) situate experiences in terms of the larger evaluation to which it is contributing; as well as (c) ground experiences in terms of relevant evaluation standards, ethical principles, and evaluator competencies.