Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Happy spring to our AEA community! My name is Linnea Hjelm-Reed, Research Associate with Everett Evaluation. I’ve been evaluating STEM Ed programs since my first year of graduate school. While I’m not a STEM scholar in the technical sense (and haven’t been since my switch from chemistry to psychology junior year of college), I firmly believe in the power of pipeline programs in training future generations of STEM scholars. My PhD training in participatory evaluation and research methods has resulted in a sensitivity to the role program participants play in those methods and how assessments might position them as more than just data points.
It is likely that many young scientists in STEM Ed programs will someday become PIs of their own research projects. This means they will work with evaluators and conduct evaluations. Participation in an evaluation process of their own experiences could set up emerging scholars to understand and value evaluation differently.
In practice, STEM skills emphasized in STEM ed programs mirror those centralized in evaluation:
At each of these stages, a participatory approach by Cousins and Earl asks: Who makes decisions? Whose knowledge matters? Whose voices are heard? This critical look at power can also encourage intentional conversations about data representation, utilization, and equity in STEM and research more broadly as discussed by Garibay and Teasdale. Getting program leaders to say ‘yes’ to bigger evaluation budgets, longer evaluation timelines, and surrendering some control to participants is no small lift. Participatory evaluation in any setting will undoubtedly require some level of preamble to situate ‘why do this.’ I imagine a starting place is vouching for the value add to participants’ learning, for program development, and in pursuit of STEM Ed’s larger mission. As suggested by Ordera, these outcomes are only a few of those possible.
In the STEM world, howmight participatory activities expand insights gathered from evaluation and offer meaningful experiences and learning for participants? Participatory evaluation for STEM Ed programs could expand traditional methods in the following ways:
Ultimately, when evaluators and STEM Ed program leadership choose participatory evaluation, STEM scholars can be transformed from program participants into emerging evaluators and researchers.
The American Evaluation Association is hosting STEM Education and Training TIG Week with our colleagues in the STEM Education and Training Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our STEM Education and Training TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.