Unleash the power of evaluative thinking in our data-driven world! This article explores how evaluative thinking goes beyond data analysis alone; it involves a systematic and reflective approach to understanding the effectiveness and impact of actions, programs, and decisions. Discover why evaluative thinking matters for informed decision-making, accountability, and fostering innovation.

Data protection in the world of evaluation is a must, especially when handling personally identifiable information (PII). Want to learn how to safeguard your data effectively? Discover the essential steps, including encryption and anonymization, to ensure your PII is shielded from unauthorized access, all while staying compliant with regulations.

The article reviews the podcast "Indigenous Insights: An Evaluation Podcast" hosted by Gladys Rowe, which explores Indigenous evaluation perspectives. Rowe, a member of Fox Lake Cree Nation, shares experiences through storytelling, promoting reflection and learning. The podcast highlights Indigenous community-centered evaluation, featuring discussions with experts about their experiences.

This article explains the concept of plain language, which aims to make writing easily understandable. It emphasizes the importance of clear communication and its relevance in knowledge translation. It also highlights reasons to write in plain language, such as addressing literacy challenges and making content accessible to a diverse audience. The article introduces tools, including AI writing tools like Chat GPT and readability tools, that assist in creating plain language content.

While traditional data collection methods like surveys, interviews, focus groups, and document reviews are well-known in evaluation, there are also innovative approaches like participatory and arts-based methods. One such method is Photovoice. While it might be daunting to embrace new techniques, it's important to recognize the value of methods like Photovoice in expanding our toolkit and enhancing evaluation practices.

It seems so simple – just ask a question! But many new evaluators or side-of-desk evaluators struggle with confidence in creating good evaluation questions. This article shares a few tips for writing evaluation questions as well as an example of how I go from a client meeting to drafting evaluation questions.

In this article, we highlight the importance of ensuring interviewer safety to make the interview experience effective for collecting data and a positive experience for everyone involved!

Ethical practice is a cornerstone of our evaluation work at Three Hive Consulting. Not only does ethical practice ensure we are doing right by everyone involved, but conducting evaluations ethically adds to the professionalization of our work. This article defines ethical practice and provides some recommendations for how you can apply an ethical lens to your evaluation.

“Confidential” and “anonymous” are words we use quite a bit in the evaluation world. But do you know what they actually mean? This article explores some of these concepts and provides some tips on how to maintain confidentiality.

In this article, we provide the answers to some of your FAQs about evaluation including: Why do people conduct evaluations? Where can I find an evaluator? What makes a good evaluator? How can I get training in evaluation? What is the difference between research and evaluation? How much does an evaluation cost?

Being knowledgeable about Implementation Science can only make our evaluation work stronger.

Recently, we’ve had several clients ask us about Developmental Evaluation (DE) including what it is and how it’s done. So we’ve pulled together a few main points about DE in this article.

Eval Academy has just released a new free template to help you Develop a Logic Model.

In this article, we discuss different incentives for participation, explore the biases that offering an incentive can introduce, and guide you in deciding whether to offer an incentive, including what form and value that incentive should be.

Kirkpatrick is probably one of those names/methods you’ve heard about in your evaluation career, but have you ever used it? In this article, we explain how to use the Kirkpatrick model in your evaluation planning, implementation, and reporting.

In this follow-up article, we will walk you through a step-by-step process of how you can develop your own ToC diagram for evaluation purposes.

This article aims to introduce you to Theory of Change (ToC) and is written for those who may have heard of this tool before but aren’t quite sure as to what it is and how it can be useful for evaluation.

You might have noticed how there seem to be quite a few evaluation tools doing very similar things. It’s no surprise that these tools can sometimes be confused, and the lines can be blurred around when and how to use them. To help you on your way to deciding which tool is best suited to your evaluation, we’ve selected a few of our favourites to compare and contrast.

The evaluation world is full of jargon! In this article, we list our back-pocket definitions for some of the most confusing evaluation language.

In this article, we describe what assumptions are in evaluation, explain why you should document assumptions, and describe how to reflect on your assumptions when collecting and analyzing evaluation results. We also provide some practical examples of how to include assumptions in your own evaluations!