Tool: Interview Questions for evaluation consultant selection From EvalTalk, the discussion group of the American Evaluation Association (AEA). What are the main reasons why you think a program should conduct an evaluation? What are the main standards and guiding principles for conducting evaluations? How would you determine if a program is ready to undergo an evaluation? How do you estimate the resources needed to conduct an evaluation? That is, how do you compute the costs of an evaluation, both in money and time (yourself and others)? If you had results from an evaluation that were based on quantitative information that conflicted with results from qualitative information, how would you resolve the conflict? If you were to conduct a mailed-out survey to program participants, how would you achieve a representative sample and ensure that your results were generalizable to all participants? Frequently evaluations involve various and independent branches and agencies that all have different expectations for the evaluation. If you had a conflict among participants in a program evaluation that could threaten the evaluation, how would you resolve the conflict? What steps would you take to proactively avoid conflict? Read any interesting articles on evaluation lately? In what journals? What was interesting about it? What other journals do you see regularly? Under what circumstances, if any, would you blow the whistle on a client?
