Building a STEM Evaluation Community: Evaluation and Evaluation Capacity Building Resource Landscape Study

Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) received a grant to develop a STEM Evaluation Community from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The primary goal of this project is to increase the capacity of evaluators to produce high quality, conceptually sound, methodologically appropriate evaluations of NSF programs and projects, specifically in the area of STEM education and outreach.

In response to a need for support for evaluation capacity, articulated by those who evaluate NSF programs and projects, the STEM Evaluation Community planned to connect evaluators across directorates, divisions and programs so that evaluation theory and practice innovations, advances and resources can be shared; connections and collaborations can be fostered; evaluation capacity and quality can be raised; and new ideas and innovations can be sparked through dialogue across experiences and expertise. To achieve this goal, EDC collaborated with key NSF evaluation stakeholders consisting of Program Resource Center PIs, staff and evaluators (PRCs), STEM Evaluation Community Project Advisors, and representatives of NSF project and program evaluators.

This Landscape Study, part of Phase I of the project, was designed to serve as a springboard for engaging key NSF STEM evaluation stakeholders in understanding the current state of evaluation and evaluation
capacity building resources available to NSF program and projects and identifying the needs and opportunities that a STEM Evaluation Community may address and build upon. To this end, the Landscape Study effort aimed to do the following:

• Identify common evaluation resources – both in terms of content and approach/strategies
• Identify the gaps in evaluation resources
• Describe the focus and approach to ECB of individual resource centers (including presence on web sites)
• Articulate current expectations for NSF project evaluations as articulated in program solicitations