124 - Exploring Reflexivity: Unveiling Constructs, Embracing Concepts, and Harnessing its Power for Social Justice in Evaluation

Abstract Information: The American Evaluation Association’s (AEA) Guiding Principles (2018a), Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation (2011), and Evaluator Competencies (2018b) prompt evaluators to consider their position, power, and privilege in the context of each evaluation in order to address bias, ethics, and cultural competency. However, these concepts are elusive, and it is unclear how evaluators are to address these issues in practice. Applying reflexivity in practice is potentially a pathway for evaluators to increase their social conscientiousness by thoughtfully considering one’s own point of view and perceptions that might influence interactions with stakeholders and all aspects of the evaluation. However, the definition of reflexivity in the field of evaluation (Williams, 2005) is ambiguous and doesn’t provide clear guidance on how to be truly reflexive in practice. Moreover, reflexivity is a social theory that can be applied to address social justice issues. Although the role evaluation plays in achieving social justice and equity has been widely discussed and is controversial (House, 2005; Symonette, Miller, & Barela, 2020), AEA has issued statements regarding evaluators’ role in addressing systemic racism and social justice, specifically after the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas (AEA Board of Directors, 2019), the murder of George Floyd (AEA Board of Directors, 2020) and the Atlanta spa shootings (Shanker, 2021). Reflexivity has the potential to increase the integrity of evaluation by “assess[ing] and mak[ing] explicit the stakeholder’, clients’, and evaluators’ values, perspectives and interests concerning the conduct and outcome of the evaluation” (AEA, 2018a). A research study was conducted with AEA members across the United States to explore the relevance and application of reflexivity in the field of evaluation. This poster proposes a conceptual framework for reflexivity in order to explicitly describe key constructs and concepts to be considered for evaluator training and professional development in the future. In addition, this poster highlights the perspectives and experiences of AEA members across the United States at this time of heightened social justice awareness and the recent statements from AEA. American Evaluation Association. (2011). Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation. American Evaluation Association. (2018a). Guiding Principles for Evaluators. https://www.eval.org/About/Guiding-Principles American Evaluation Association. (2018b). AEA Evaluator Competencies. https://www.eval.org/Portals/0/Docs/AEA%20Evaluator%20Competencies.pdf American Evaluation Association Board of Directors. (2020, October 12). Statement from the AEA Board of Directors Regarding Systemic Racism. https://www.eval.org/Publications/Newsletters/Past-Issues/TitleLink/Statement-from-the-AEA-Board-of-Directors-Regarding-Systemic-Racism American Evaluation Association Board of Directors. (2019, August 21). AEA Sends condolences to mass shooting victims and community. House, E. R. (2005) Social justice. In S. Mathison (Ed.), Encyclopedia of evaluation (pp. 394-396). Sage Publications. Shanker, V. (2021). Statement from the AEA Board of Directors regarding racism and inequality in our Society. American Evaluation Association. Available at https://www.eval.org/Full-Article/statement-from-the-aea-board-of-directors-regarding-racism-and-inequality-in-our-society. Symonette, H., Miller, R. L., & Barela, E. (2020). Power, privilege, and competence: Using the 2018 AEA Evaluator Competencies to shape socially just evaluation practice. In J. A. King (Ed.), The American Evaluation Association’s Program Evaluator Competencies. New Directions for Evaluation, 2020, 117–132. Williams, D. D. (2005) Reflexivity. In S. Mathison (Ed.), Encyclopedia of evaluation (p. 369). Sage Publications.