182: Evaluator Competencies: Stakeholders’ Perspectives on What’s Taught Versus What’s Sought

This paper explores the connections between the competencies evaluators acquire through university-based evaluator education programs and those required and desired by employers. The study adopted a concurrent mixed-method approach to examine this relationship. Two different surveys were administered, one for graduates from evaluation programs (job seekers) and the other for employers coupled with in-depth interviews. Job advertisements in ghanacurrentjobs.com were analyzed. The findings indicate that job seekers, employers, and job posters generally agree on the importance of core competencies, such as project management, quantitative analyses, and data management. However, some skills and knowledge desired by employers, such as evaluation theory, evaluation use, qualitative analysis, proposal writing, and presentation skills, differ from what job seekers acquire in university-based evaluator education programs. We discuss the implications for training and future research on training in evaluation.

Theresa Yaaba Baah-Ennumh – Professor, Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University Of Science And Technology, Kumasi, Ghana