Description
I am presenting a professional development workshop at the upcoming meeting of the European Evaluation Association. The workshop description appears below.

The content of this workshop will be a succession of lectures, group discussions, and breakout exercises to provide participants with the understanding needed to recognize how complex behavior might play a role in the models they develop, the methodologies they devise, and what messages they extract from their data. Without this understanding, evaluators cannot correctly describe what programs are doing, and why. If they get it wrong, so too will evaluation users and stakeholders.

Understanding the application of Complexity Science to Evaluation requires understanding the relationship between specific constructs and general themes. Each specific construct is useful in its own right, but its full value lies in appreciating the epistemology in which that theme is embedded. This workshop will treat both specific constructs that can be applied to…