Date: Friday, September 11, 2026
We, are Monica Bruckner, Ashley Carlson, Ellen Iverson, Kristin O’Connell, and Kerry Vachta, the Evaluation & Education Research team at Carleton College’s Science Education Resource Center (SERC). We provide use-inspired evaluation, thought partnership, and support for programs and capacity building projects in, and beyond, higher education. We are excited to share some approaches that have helped us and our partners adapt to these rapidly changing times.
We have conducted science education evaluation and research for decades. Whether tracking faculty adoption of a new teaching approach, measuring long-term student outcomes, assessing institutional change and capacity building efforts, or monitoring partnerships and network development to integrate research findings into decision making, we take pride in delivering useful evaluations that help project teams navigate complexity, make evidence-informed decisions, and achieve meaningful long-term impacts.
But recently, the ground has shifted. Funding priorities are changing, decisions can be delayed, timelines revised, and grant resources frozen mid-cycle. In this environment, longitudinal evaluation methods can be misaligned with project realities. So we have pivoted our practices to rise above the churn; shifting towards nimble, early-stage strategies that buffer projects against uncertainty and capture vital learning in real time.
In projects focused on building institutional research capacity and infrastructure, long-term metrics (e.g. number and variety of awarded grants) document change that can take years to materialize. We re-tuned plans to focus on progress toward preconditions for success. We queried administrative teams and reported on the policy and operational improvements needed to develop lasting partnerships or improve research productivity. Additionally, we engaged participants around the relational shifts attributable to the project. This approach allowed project leaders and participants to surface shorter-term outcomes and engage more deeply with qualitative aspects of their project, contributing to important learning that will be valuable even if the project ends early.
In another project, our evaluation of a workforce development plan implementation was expanded to explore the evolving interests of early career researchers as shifting priorities and expanding networks created new needs and possibilities. As graduate students and pre-tenure faculty expressed greater interest in teaching, public sector, and non-traditional career paths, the evaluation’s network analysis documented their expanding relationships and the availability and provision of mentoring and professional development support that opened the door to new career paths.
As evaluators, ultimately, we can all work with our partners to hone their evaluative thinking and capacity so they are better positioned to think systemically and structurally about factors shaping their efforts and, in higher education, on their students’ experiences and outcomes. When the world slows down again, we may be able to engage in previous or newly created strategies. Until then, considering how to include early, flexible, and nimble measures in an overall evaluation strategy will help our partners assess their progress, make informed decisions, and plan for effective change in our changing world.
One resource that may be especially useful is the Broader Impact Plan Rubric that breaks down the preconditions for success of societal benefit plans. Designed to guide researchers through the process of developing strong BI goals and strategies for funding proposals, it can also help evaluators generate constructive feedback or assess the progress of funded research along existing social benefit objectives – which can be especially important and delicate now. The rubric is part of the ARIS Broader Impacts Toolkit that offers a wealth of tools like a Planning Checklist and a BI Wizard to help researchers through the steps of building partnerships for effective research projects with tangible benefits to society.
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