The American Evaluation Association (AEA) recently re-worked the Guiding Principles for Evaluators. These principles are the ethical foundation of our work. The AEA rightly notes that these principles are meant to inform but cannot account for every possible situation and that occasionally the principles come into conflict with each other.

We recently used the AEA guiding principles at a staff meeting to talk about how they guide our work. We examined many recent projects, including our work with the Minnesota Department of Human Services, the Northwest Minnesota Council of Collaboratives, and the Girl Scouts.

The principles follow, along with some example questions that evaluators can ask when using the principles to inform their work:

Systematic Inquiry: How are methods of participant selection important to the credibility of an evaluation? What about methods of data collection?

Competence: How can you decide what dimensions of competence are relevant for an evaluation? What is cultural competence and how will you know its presence?

Integrity/Honesty: How might the idea of integrity or honesty affect different stages of the evaluation?

Respect for People: What are major ways of showing respect for people in an evaluation context?

Responsibilities for General and Public Welfare: Are there limits to an evaluator’s responsibilities for general and public welfare?