Issues in Evaluation: Surveying the Evaluation Policy Landscape in 2022

The newly released issue of New Directions for Evaluation features a landscape analysis of current evaluation policy, updating an issue providing perspectives from over a decade ago. In that decade, much has changed as the field of evaluation in the federal government matured, and a wider recognition of evaluation policy’s purpose was accepted: the principles, guidelines, or directives that guide actions about the planning, conduct, or use of evaluation. In government activities, evaluation policies matter because they help determine what form evaluation products take and influence how relevant parties develop, respond, and react to evaluation. 

During this Issues in Evaluation session, co-sponsored by the Government Accountability Office and Data Foundation, co-authors of the New Directions for Evaluation issue, presented and discussed their research and its implications for the evaluation community.