| Session Title: Eyes Wide Open: Learning to Spot Ethical Quandaries in Evaluation Practice |
| Multipaper Session 600 to be held in International Ballroom A on Friday, November 9, 1:55 PM to 3:25 PM |
| Sponsored by the Independent Consulting TIG |
| Chair(s): |
| Ken Meter, Crossroads Resource Center, kmeter@crcworks.org |
| Abstract: Evaluators are likely to be confronted with challenging ethical dilemmas throughout their careers. No matter how assiduously they follow the AEA's Guidelines for Ethical Practice or other professional standards and codes of ethics, evaluators will find that some contexts generate intractable ethical issues. Evaluators will be able to resolve some ethical dilemmas satisfactorily, even to find in them invaluable learning opportunities. Not rarely, however, ethical issues are costly regardless of whether or how evaluators address them. They can cost evaluators time, financial and staff resources, professional standing, trust, relationships, and peace of mind. For independent evaluators and small firms these costs can be especially onerous. In this session, using cases from their own practices and the literature on ethics in evaluation, independent evaluators examine reasons that ethical issues surface in various evaluation contexts and suggest strategies for identifying areas of potential conflict and steps to avoid or mitigate them. |
| Avoiding Ethical Entanglements: Learning About Self, Situation, and Stakeholders |
| Amy La Goy, Evaluation and Research Consulting, amylagoy@earthlink.net |
| Evaluators will face ethical dilemmas throughout their careers. Due to the contextual nature of ethical issues there is no set of rules for determining an appropriate course of action when they arise. The American Evaluation Association document, 'Guiding Principles for Evaluators', suggests ways of thinking about and pursuing ethical practice, but evaluators are left to interpret the guidelines in light of their own values and the circumstances of the evaluation. Not rarely, ethical dilemmas surface when stakeholders and evaluators hold different expectations for and beliefs about the evaluation - about its aims, processes, stakeholders, outcomes, audiences. Conflicts in expectations can engender some of the most difficult dilemmas to resolve, but they may be avoided or tempered if evaluators have relevant knowledge of themselves and their clients before undertaking a project. In this paper, we present a heuristic for evaluators to use to identify and prepare for potentially problematic contexts and clients. |
| Crossroads Reached in Evaluation Practice: Learning to Identify Ethical Signposts |
| Norma Martinez-Rubin, Evaluation Focused Consulting, norma@evaluationfocused.com |
| Independent evaluators anticipate having the liberty to be selective about the clients they engage, the projects for which they are hired, and the duration of professional relationships with their clients. Quandaries examined retrospectively provide the evaluator opportunities to identify ethical pitfalls and prepare to manage future consulting engagements. Being unaware of such pitfalls can mar an evaluation practitioner's professional integrity and credibility, two valued assets in maintaining lasting relationships within the evaluation field and across client projects. In this paper presentation, case examples from the presenter's past consulting engagements will illustrate quandaries potentially encountered in the early development of an evaluation practice. Sections from the American Evaluation Association's Cultural Reading of Program Evaluation Standards will be discussed as professional signposts available to compare one's approach to successfully navigate ethical dilemmas faced in evaluation practice for the solo practitioner. |