Adventures In Evaluation Podcast

The Big Lebowski and Evaluation

What does evaluation have to do with the movie The Big Lebowski?  

Well, the answer is "a lot" if you're up on this cult classic and number one favourite movie of James, aka "The Dude".

Before you listen to this podcast we strongly suggest you view it first so you don't miss any of our keen insights.

Cheers,

Kylie & James

P.S.  Here is the photo of Kylie recording in the Starbucks bathroom while on family vacation.

Making the Leap: Evaluation Consulting with Gail Barrington

This week we chat with Gail Barrington, Evaluation Consultant and author of Consulting Start up & Management: A Guide for Evaluators & Applied Researchers. Plus, here's a great little AEA365 post about small-sized consulting. Cheers, James & Kylie

Hey, Where Did My Stats Go?

Some of us evaluators find ourselves using our stats straight away out of school, and for various reasons some of us don't.  In this episode we discuss the different levels of use among evaluators and what is really acceptable in terms of statistical knowledge. Here's the link to Paul D. Ellis' great little e-book, Effect Size Matters. AEA often has eStudy courses on statistics,  and here are some other links for online refreshers:

• Rice University's Online Statistics Education: An Interactive Multimedia Course of Study
• Johns Hopkins' Introduction to Biostatistics 1
• Coursera/Princeton University's Statistics 1
• UDACITY's Introduction to Statistics

This list is by no means comprehensive, so please, if you know of others, suggest them in the Comments below! And yes, it is Rip Van Winkle.

AEA 2012 Conference Interviews & Debrief

Neither James nor I were able to make this year's AEA conference :( ... so in this episode we chat with our most excellent reporters on the ground, Pat Mueller and Amy Germuth. You'll hear their personal highlights of the conference as well as the views of various attendees on what was hot and major take-aways. What was YOUR major take-away from the conference? Leave us a comment below. Cheers, Kylie & James

About Us

Have you ever wondered what’s on the minds of program evaluators these days? Tune in to hear James Coyle and Kylie Hutchinson chat about topics, trends, and tips in the field of program evaluation. Relevant, practical, and entertaining, we aim to make this one of the most valuable 30 minutes you spend reflecting about evaluation all week.

"I’ve been listening to your Adventures in Evaluation podcast and I just wanted to let you know that I absolutely love it. I’ve been learning, laughing, and feeling a greater connection to the evaluation community through it."

James Coyle (CE) is an ”internal evaluator” in a large organization and has been working in the health care sector for 13 years. He has a background in research, performance monitoring and program evaluation. He currently lives in Kelowna, BC, Canada and enjoys riding his beach cruiser and cooking when not involved in useful program evaluations. (Note: comments on this site and podcast do not reflect the opinion of his employer...or his wife.)

Kylie Hutchinson (CE) is an independent evaluation consultant and trainer (“external evaluator”) with Community Solutions Planning & Evaluation. She has over 30 years experience working primarily with not-for-profits and government agencies. Kylie's passion is bringing practical evaluation tools and resources to those working in the trenches in a fun and interactive way. She is the author of 3 books on evaluation and program sustainability: A Short Primer on Innovative Evaluation Reporting, Evaluation Failures: 22 Tales of Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned, and Survive and Thrive: Three Steps to Securing Your Program’s Sustainability. In 2020, Kylie was awarded the Canadian Evaluation Society's Contribution to Evaluation in Canada award.

We'd love to hear from you! Please feel free to send your comments and feedback to us at adventuresinevaluationpodcast@gmail.com.