A Measurement-Based Approach to Assessing Evaluators’ Commitment to Social Justice

• In Event: Exploring Epistemological Perspectives in Research on Evaluation

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of a sound instrument to measure evaluators’ implicit and enacted social justice beliefs. Despite a thriving field of evaluation theory rooted in social justice, there has been little conceptual or empirical work to link this ideal to evaluators’ beliefs. Scholars have begun to argue for the incorporation of social justice ideals into the teaching of evaluation; however, the lack of measurement tools in this field makes it difficult to assess implications of teaching such ideals to evaluators. We use a construct modeling approach to develop and operationalize this construct. This work fills a critical gap in our understanding of how evaluators develop and enact social justice beliefs in their training and practice.

Author

• Lauren P. Saenz, Boston College