Christina (Tina) Christie, chair and professor in the Department of Education at UCLA, will give the lecture “Why Evaluation Theory Should be Used to Inform Evaluation Policy” on Wednesday, February 26 from 12 pm – 1 pm in Education 4108. The free event is presented by The Department of Education, the Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences (QMSS) interdisciplinary Ph.D. emphasis, and the Policy Goes to School lecture series.
Dr. Christie’s lecture will focus on the intersection between evaluation theory and policy. Many organizations now have evaluation policies, which are intend to frame evaluation practice.
Evaluation theory is also intended to guide practice. Given the related purposes of evaluation theories and policies, the extent to which policies are informed by theory is important to consider. Because evaluation policies have emerged relatively recently, the conceptual and empirical work on the theory-policy-practice connection is limited. Throughout the lecture, Dr. Christie will examine the use of evaluation theory in the evaluation policies developed by both federal agencies and charitable foundations. The presentation will conclude with a set of reflections on the different strategies for and benefits of a stronger integration of evaluation theory in evaluation policies.
Dr. Christie is chair and professor in the Department of Education at UCLA. Her work has three main foci: applied evaluation research studies, research on evaluation practice, and theoretical analysis. She is committed to training educational scholars in mixed-methods, and evaluation and research methods. She is the former Chair of the Theories of Evaluation Division and the Research on Evaluation Division and served on the board of the American Evaluation Association (elected) as member at large. She served as section editor of the American Journal of Evaluation and serves on the editorial board of Studies in Educational Evaluation.