Jill Anne Chouinard
Biographic Data
| ID | 5016253 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jill Anne Chouinard |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jill Anne |
| FAMILY NAME | Chouinard |
| SIGNATURE | CHOUINARD J A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Greensboro |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1771-2085 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 44 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Unraveling the complexities of learning in community development evaluation
In this article, we critically explore the pedagogical implications of evaluation in the community development sector, with a focus on opportunities for enhancing learning through evaluation in community contexts. We begin by situating learning as foundational to evaluation, whether individually or in collaboration with others, and through reflection, dialogue, critical thinking, or practice. We then shift to a discussion of community development…
Editor’s Remarks
Recognizing the Need for a Trauma-Informed Approach in the Evaluation of an Indigenous Program in British Columbia
Trauma is prevalent in our society. As culturally responsive evaluators, we often engage with Indigenous peoples to discuss issues that are traumatic. While we have been trained as culturally responsive evaluators to create safe spaces, build relationships, use collaborative and dialogic approaches, and ensure that our methods and methodologies are culturally commensurate with the community’s cultural context, we can still cause harm. If trauma i…
Un mot de la rédactrice
Un mot de la rédactrice
Editors’ Remarks
Editor’s Remarks
Editor’s Remarks
Montague bring together 14 colleagues whose articles document, analyze, and expand on John's contributions to evaluation in the Canadian public service as well as his contributions to evaluation theory.As the editors note, "John left a sig nificant institutional and academic legacy in evaluation." The articles in this special issue outline John's contributions to evaluation theory and practice, providing an insider's perspective on his pioneering…
Editor’s Remarks
This issue of CJPE reflects the importance of context, community, voice and relationships in evaluation practice, whether in an Indigenous urban community in the US, a virtual environment during the pandemic, a provincial office in PEI, or in communities in Southeastern Africa.Our need to build understanding and connection grounds our practice.I am particularly delighted to introduce this issue of CJPE, as it provides our first Indigenous publica…
Un mot de la rédactrice
Un mot de la rédactrice
Un mot de la rédactriceC' est un honneur pour moi de vous présenter ce numéro spécial dédié à John Mayne, un « leader d' opinion », un « esprit pratique », un « bâtisseur de ponts » et un « chercheur-praticien » dans le domaine de l' évaluation.Les rédacteurs invités Steffen Bohni Nielsen, Sebastian Lemire et Steve Montague rassemblent quatorze collègues dont les articles documentent, analysent et développent les contributions de John à l' évalua…
Un mot de la rédactrice
Un mot de la rédactriceLe présent numéro de la RCÉP refète l'importance du contexte, de la communauté, de la voix et des relations dans la pratique de l' évaluation, qu'il soit question d'une communauté autochtone urbaine aux États-Unis, d'un environnement virtuel pendant la pandémie, d'un bureau provincial de l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard ou de communautés de l' Afrique du Sud-est.Le besoin que nous avons de comprendre et de nous connecter est le fond…
Editor’s Remarks
Un mot de la rédactrice
Challenges Evaluating an Equity-Focused Community Coalition Initiative
In this practice note, the authors reflect on their experiences evaluating a three-year behavioural health equity initiative that was conducted with eight community coalitions located across the southeastern United States. The main focus of the practice note is on the challenges the authors experienced in their evaluation, most of which were largely outside their control: unpredictable funding cycle, complexity of problem, level of local knowledg…
Why a Special Issue of Practice Notes about How to Teach Evaluation
In the fi eld of evaluation there have long been tensions between the ideas of evaluation as a transactional practice and evaluation as an aspirational practice intrinsically related to questions of worth, purpose, and value. While one of the hallmarks of contemporary evaluation remains its practical, problem-solving orientation, evaluation is not simply the technical application of inquiry methods to address "real world" problems It is also a hi…
Fieldwork Experience as Cultural Immersion
In this practice note, two international students of evaluation reflect on the cultural challenges they experienced learning to apply Western-based methodologies in unfamiliar cultural contexts. Using a process of reflection, the students identify four interrelated challenges: understanding the culture and program setting, the need for interpersonal and communication skills, learning the language of evaluation, and telling the story. The paper co…
Re-Envisioning Evaluation Pedagogy with a Community of Scholar Teachers
The] educator must be awake, critical, open to the world. It is an honor and a responsi bility to be a teacher in such dark times-and to imagine, and to act on what we imagine, what we believe ought to at last be
Developing an ethical rationale for collaborative approaches to evaluation
As a deeply relational, dialogic, engaged and political approach, the collaborative research context is fairly unique in the world of research, and as such opens up an entirely new set of ethical considerations that serve to differentiate it from other approaches, repositioning ethics as a fundamental rationale for collaborative inquiry. In this paper, we revisit the justifications for collaborative approaches to evaluation—the three Ps—which hav…
Introduction to the Ethics, Values, and Culture Section
Exploring Use and Influence in Culturally Responsive Approaches to Evaluation
Culturally responsive approaches to evaluation are emerging across diverse program and community contexts to address increasingly intractable social, economic, political, and environmental concerns. Despite the sense of urgency, responsibility, and moral obligation motivating the use of these approaches, however, empirical research on the implications of centering culture in evaluation practice remains scarce. In this article, we conduct a system…
Transparent, Translucent, Opaque
The concept of power is a complex and often intangible aspect of the evaluation process that is frequently a focal topic among the conceptual evaluation literature concerning collaborative or culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) contexts. Unfortunately, there remains a significant theory to practice gap as power is often rarely addressed or specifically identified in empirical practice. In the current article, the authors provide a comprehensiv…
The Impact of Practice on Pedagogy
In this practice note two novice evaluation teachers share their findings from research conducted with students who were enrolled in a theory and practicum course in evaluation. The study focused on understanding how and in what ways students navigate between the world of theory and the world of practice. The findings from this study subsequently led to a re-envisioning of the course offerings to provide a more nuanced transition between two dich…
Moving Beyond the Buzzword
The terms cultural responsiveness and cultural competence have become ubiquitous in many fields of social inquiry, including in evaluation. The discourse surrounding these issues in evaluation has also increased markedly in recent years, and the terms can now be found in many RFPs and government-based evaluation descriptions. We have found that novice evaluators are able to engage culturally re-sponsive approaches to evaluation at the conceptual …
Moving Beyond the Buzzword
The terms cultural responsiveness and cultural competence have become ubiquitous in many fields of social inquiry, including in evaluation. The discourse surrounding these issues in evaluation has also increased markedly in recent years, and the terms can now be found in many RFPs and government-based evaluation descriptions. We have found that novice evaluators are able to engage culturally responsive approaches to evaluation at the conceptual l…
The Case for Participatory Evaluation in an Era of Accountability
Evaluation occurs within a specific context and is influenced by the economic, political, historical, and social forces that shape that context. The culture of evaluation is thus very much embedded in the culture of accountability that currently prevails in public sector institutions, policies, and program. As such, our understanding of the reception and use of participatory approaches to evaluation must include an understanding of the practices …
Transparent, Translucent, Opaque
The concept of power is a complex and often intangible aspect of the evaluation process that is frequently a focal topic among the conceptual evaluation literature concerning collaborative or culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) contexts. Unfortunately, there remains a significant theory to practice gap as power is often rarely addressed or specifically identified in empirical practice. In the current article, the authors provide a comprehensiv…
The Practice of Evaluation in Public Sector Contexts
In the original paper, it was argued that while there is an array of methods and methodologies available, their use is delimited by the culture of accountability that prevails in public sector institutions, a fact that is particularly problematic given the complexity and diversity of evaluation contexts today. This short rejoinder, to responses made by J.G. Carmen and L.-E. Datta to The Case for Participatory Evaluation in an Era of Accountabilit…
Navigating Theory and Practice Through Evaluation Fieldwork
To explore the relationship between theory and practice in evaluation, we focus on the perspectives and experiences of student evaluators, as they move from the classroom to an engagement with the social, political, and cultural dynamics of evaluation in the field. Through reflective journals, postcourse interviews, and facilitated group discussions, we involve students in critical thinking around the relationship between evaluation theory and pr…
Understanding relationships in culturally complex evaluation contexts
Cross-cultural evaluation is an explicit approach to evaluation that considers culture a key consideration in the evaluation of programs, leading to the search for methodological practices that are commensurate with the culture, context and values of the program community. Through the exploration of three ‘problematics’, this article explores what it means to understand others and ourselves within the research context, problematizing the nature o…
Organizational Capacity To Do and Use Evaluation
Despite increasing interest in the integration of evaluative inquiry into organizational functions and culture, the availability of empirical research addressing organizational capacity building to do and use evaluation is limited. This exploratory descriptive survey of internal evaluators in Canada asked about evaluation capacity building in the context of organizational characteristics (learning, support structures), evaluative activity and use…
Learning Through Evaluation? Reflections on Two Federal Community-Building Initiatives
In recent years, the federal government has launched numerous pilot projects to tackle complex, localized policy problems through new modes of governance involving vertical engagement with community-based organizations and horizontal collaboration across departments. A key purpose of these time-limited projects is policy learning, with an emphasis on action research and stakeholder dialogue to inform future innovation. However, realizing the poss…
Understanding Organization Capacity for Evaluation
The special issue is devoted to the examination of organizational capacity for evaluation and evaluation capacity building (ECB) through empirical inquiry. The compilation consists of two quantitative surveys of evaluators and seven single or multiple case studies across a broad array of organizations in a diverse contexts (e.g., east-central Ontario, California, Hawaii, Minnesota, and Israel). In this final article, the authors look across the c…
A Review and Synthesis of Current Research on Cross-Cultural Evaluation
As a fairly new and emergent construct, there remain many gaps in our knowledge about how to integrate notions of culture and cultural context into evaluation theory and practice, as well as gaps in our knowledge about how to conduct and implement evaluations in immigrant and indigenous communities. In this article, the authors provide a comprehensive review of the empirical literature on evaluations conducted in cultural communities, with an emp…
The Case for Participatory Evaluation in an Era of Accountability
Evaluation occurs within a specific context and is influenced by the economic, political, historical, and social forces that shape that context. The culture of evaluation is thus very much embedded in the culture of accountability that currently prevails in public sector institutions, policies, and program. As such, our understanding of the reception and use of participatory approaches to evaluation must include an understanding of the practices …
The Practice of Evaluation in Public Sector Contexts
In the original paper, it was argued that while there is an array of methods and methodologies available, their use is delimited by the culture of accountability that prevails in public sector institutions, a fact that is particularly problematic given the complexity and diversity of evaluation contexts today. This short rejoinder, to responses made by J.G. Carmen and L.-E. Datta to The Case for Participatory Evaluation in an Era of Accountabilit…
Understanding relationships in culturally complex evaluation contexts
Cross-cultural evaluation is an explicit approach to evaluation that considers culture a key consideration in the evaluation of programs, leading to the search for methodological practices that are commensurate with the culture, context and values of the program community. Through the exploration of three ‘problematics’, this article explores what it means to understand others and ourselves within the research context, problematizing the nature o…
From New Public Management to New Political Governance
Public administration scholars have discerned a shift in the federal governance context in Canada, from what was traditionally a strong, nonpartisan public service to a more politicized, even partisan, model of public decision-making with power concentrated in the upper reaches of the political executive. We explore the potential implications of these changes for evaluation in the federal bureaucracy. Our analysis, tentative at this point, sugges…
A Critical Exploration of Culture in International Development Evaluation
In this article we provide a comprehensive review of 71 studies on evaluation in international development contexts published over the past 18 years. The primary purpose of the review is to explore how culture is being conceptualized and defined in international development contexts and how evaluation practitioners, scholars, and/or policymakers who work in international development evaluation frame the role of culture and cultural context in the…
Introduction
Navigating Theory and Practice Through Evaluation Fieldwork
To explore the relationship between theory and practice in evaluation, we focus on the perspectives and experiences of student evaluators, as they move from the classroom to an engagement with the social, political, and cultural dynamics of evaluation in the field. Through reflective journals, postcourse interviews, and facilitated group discussions, we involve students in critical thinking around the relationship between evaluation theory and pr…
The Impact of Practice on Pedagogy
In this practice note two novice evaluation teachers share their findings from research conducted with students who were enrolled in a theory and practicum course in evaluation. The study focused on understanding how and in what ways students navigate between the world of theory and the world of practice. The findings from this study subsequently led to a re-envisioning of the course offerings to provide a more nuanced transition between two dich…
Moving Beyond the Buzzword
The terms cultural responsiveness and cultural competence have become ubiquitous in many fields of social inquiry, including in evaluation. The discourse surrounding these issues in evaluation has also increased markedly in recent years, and the terms can now be found in many RFPs and government-based evaluation descriptions. We have found that novice evaluators are able to engage culturally re-sponsive approaches to evaluation at the conceptual …
Moving Beyond the Buzzword
The terms cultural responsiveness and cultural competence have become ubiquitous in many fields of social inquiry, including in evaluation. The discourse surrounding these issues in evaluation has also increased markedly in recent years, and the terms can now be found in many RFPs and government-based evaluation descriptions. We have found that novice evaluators are able to engage culturally responsive approaches to evaluation at the conceptual l…
Transparent, Translucent, Opaque
The concept of power is a complex and often intangible aspect of the evaluation process that is frequently a focal topic among the conceptual evaluation literature concerning collaborative or culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) contexts. Unfortunately, there remains a significant theory to practice gap as power is often rarely addressed or specifically identified in empirical practice. In the current article, the authors provide a comprehensiv…
Exploring Use and Influence in Culturally Responsive Approaches to Evaluation
Culturally responsive approaches to evaluation are emerging across diverse program and community contexts to address increasingly intractable social, economic, political, and environmental concerns. Despite the sense of urgency, responsibility, and moral obligation motivating the use of these approaches, however, empirical research on the implications of centering culture in evaluation practice remains scarce. In this article, we conduct a system…
Why a Special Issue of Practice Notes about How to Teach Evaluation
In the fi eld of evaluation there have long been tensions between the ideas of evaluation as a transactional practice and evaluation as an aspirational practice intrinsically related to questions of worth, purpose, and value. While one of the hallmarks of contemporary evaluation remains its practical, problem-solving orientation, evaluation is not simply the technical application of inquiry methods to address "real world" problems It is also a hi…
Fieldwork Experience as Cultural Immersion
In this practice note, two international students of evaluation reflect on the cultural challenges they experienced learning to apply Western-based methodologies in unfamiliar cultural contexts. Using a process of reflection, the students identify four interrelated challenges: understanding the culture and program setting, the need for interpersonal and communication skills, learning the language of evaluation, and telling the story. The paper co…
Re-Envisioning Evaluation Pedagogy with a Community of Scholar Teachers
The] educator must be awake, critical, open to the world. It is an honor and a responsi bility to be a teacher in such dark times-and to imagine, and to act on what we imagine, what we believe ought to at last be
Developing an ethical rationale for collaborative approaches to evaluation
As a deeply relational, dialogic, engaged and political approach, the collaborative research context is fairly unique in the world of research, and as such opens up an entirely new set of ethical considerations that serve to differentiate it from other approaches, repositioning ethics as a fundamental rationale for collaborative inquiry. In this paper, we revisit the justifications for collaborative approaches to evaluation—the three Ps—which hav…
Introduction to the Ethics, Values, and Culture Section
Editor’s Remarks
Un mot de la rédactrice
Challenges Evaluating an Equity-Focused Community Coalition Initiative
In this practice note, the authors reflect on their experiences evaluating a three-year behavioural health equity initiative that was conducted with eight community coalitions located across the southeastern United States. The main focus of the practice note is on the challenges the authors experienced in their evaluation, most of which were largely outside their control: unpredictable funding cycle, complexity of problem, level of local knowledg…
Editor’s Remarks
Evaluation and Performance Assessment (23 works) · Psychology (19 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Political science (14 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Community Health and Development (9 works) · Engineering ethics (8 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Context (archaeology (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works)