Building Evaluation Capacity: Activities for Teaching and Training

Hallie Preskill, PhD. is a Managing Director with FSG, a global nonprofit strategy, evaluation, and research consulting firm (since 2009), and leads the firm’s Strategic Learning and Evaluation practice. In her role as a senior advisor, she works on a wide variety of evaluation and learning projects. Sample clients include the Kresge Foundation, MasterCard Foundation, Knight Foundation, The California Endowment, Missouri Foundation for Health, Norlien Foundation, Packard Foundation, Northwest Area Foundation, Blue Shield of CA Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. She has helped evaluate a wide range of initiatives and programs related to community information needs, substance abuse, early learning, poverty, arts and culture, teacher professional development, domestic and sexual violence, economic development, youth and education, and healthcare. Prior to joining FSG, Hallie spent more than 20 years in academia, teaching graduate level courses in program evaluation, training design and development, organizational learning, appreciative inquiry and consulting. Her research has focused on evaluation capacity building, transfer of learning/training, evaluation use, and evaluation as a catalyst for individual, team, and organizational learning. Hallie’s other books include: Reframing Evaluation through Appreciative Inquiry (2006, with T. Catsambas), Evaluation in Organizations: A Systematic Approach to Enhancing Learning, Performance & Change (2001, 2009, with D. Russ-Eft), Evaluation Strategies for Effective Strategies for Communicating and Reporting (2005, with R. T. Torres and M. Piontek), and Evaluative Inquiry for Learning in Organizations (1999, with R. T. Torres), and Becoming the Change: What One Organization Working To Transform Educational Systems Learned About Team Learning and Change (2011, with R. Babiera). Hallie was the 2007 President of the American Evaluation Association. She received the American Evaluation Association′s Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Award for Outstanding Professional Practice in 2002 and the University of Illinois Distinguished Alumni Award in 2004. Hallie holds a PhD from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Darlene Russ-Eft, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Adult and Higher Education, College of Education, Oregon State University (OSU). She received her BA from the College of Wooster in psychology and her MA and PhD from University of Michigan in cognitive psychology. She worked for international training companies as director of research before joining OSU, where she teaches doctoral and master’s courses to senior leaders and practitioners. Her research focuses on issues related to leadership development and HRD program evaluation. Her most recent book is titled Managing Social Science Research (2017, Wiley). She is past president of the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD); past board member of the American Evaluation Association; and past editor of Human Resource Development Quarterly. In her previous role with international training companies and as a director for the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance, and Instruction (ibstpiR), she has undertaken several studies examining global competencies related to HRD. She has received several awards for her research, including the Times Mirror Editor of the Year Award, the ASTD (now ATD) Research Article Award, and the AHRD Scholar Award. She was also inducted into the AHRD Hall of Fame.