Evaluation Matters—He Take Tō Te Aromatawai 6: 2020

The turbulent and fluid environment in which we find ourselves due to the COVID-19 pandemic requires evaluative responses that facilitate learning, adaptation, and timeliness. This article examines the last of these—the need for timely evaluative information. Such information requires evaluators and their clients making trade-offs between what is desirable and what is feasible in a constrained time frame. Applying a light-hearted analogy—skateboard, pushbike, quad bike—three different… Read more

The arrival of low-cost online and automated survey technologies has substantially increased the possibilities for gathering data on people’s views and experiences. In the face of COVID-19, this has enabled continued outreach to people at a time when face-to-face surveys are often impossible. Yet the enhanced opportunity for gathering data also brings with it the danger of its over-use, and with it, the onset of survey fatigue.
In this piece, I discuss the challenges of survey fatigue… Read more

Public-sector programme evaluation in New Zealand has advanced significantly since the early 1990s, with growth in evaluation activity, improved service quality, and establishment of a formal training pathway and a national governance body. However, there is evidence of emerging challenges, particularly with respect to supply, quality, transparency, and leadership. This article briefly explores the evolution of evaluation in New Zealand and recent developments, and suggests that there may be… Read more

This article was triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the antiracist protests that have swept the world. Both developments have brought to the surface the social inequities and the existential risks that face humanity in a complex and interconnected world. Indigenous evaluation is highly relevant to both predicaments. Since I am not an indigenous evaluator, I cannot do justice to the wealth and diversity of the indigenous evaluation experience. All I seek to do is to connect indigenous… Read more

Crises may present unprecedented challenges that require people to think outside their traditional boxes. During COVID-19, many of us have seen officials and experts come together to share information and simultaneously respond to an emerging issue. For an evaluator working at the coalface of the pandemic response it can be an opportunity to draw from their kete (basket) of evaluation tools and matrixes to support the decision-making process to be as defensible as possible. This praxis… Read more

The current COVID-19 pandemic has provided the world with a range of crisis leadership case studies as nations’ leaders approach control of, and communication about, the virus in dramatically different ways. Drawing on the literature and the author’s post-disaster and post-crisis studies, this reflective piece offers a framework for analysing and evaluating leadership responses to the current crisis in order to strengthen our ability to deal with future crises. The focus of this article is… Read more

"I started taking notice of the coronavirus outbreak when it started to quickly spread to other countries. On 13 January 2020 a first COVID-19 case outside China was confirmed in Thailand. When Europe got affected and numbers started exponentially rising in Italy and England, I became concerned.
"When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a pandemic on 11 March and the media increased its coverage, the government started its public awareness and prevention programme… Read more