Abstract
This editorial is one of my first tasks as the new Editor for the Evaluation Journal of Australasia. I count it as a privilege to take on this role and look forward to making a contribution to the ongoing development of the Journal. I also want to acknowledge the hard work of the editorial team in the lead-up to this issue. Jeff Adams has now been appointed as Managing Editor and Kylie Kingston remains as an Associate Editor. I look forward to working with them and building the team of Associate Editors and the Editorial Advisory Board through 2022.
The first article in this edition by Kerryn O’Rourke and colleagues addresses an important methodological issue for realist evaluators in cross-cultural contexts. While their response suggests that realist interview methods in cross-cultural qualitative approaches are appropriate and reasonable, and they encourage other realist evaluators to ‘include and give voice to people from culturally diverse groups in program evaluations’ (p. 14), for me this is not just an issue for realist evaluators. In the Northern Territory contexts I work, with Aboriginal communities and community researchers, the issues of voice are just as important. I note the important work completed last year by Sharon Gollan and Kathleen Stacey (Gollan & Stacey, 2021) for the Australian Evaluation Society in developing a First Nations Cultural Safety Framework. The depth of this work reflects a level of critical thinking that could be applied to almost any cross-cultural evaluation context. I could not imagine too many social contexts within Australia that don’t have a degree of cultural or ethnic diversity. I look forward to seeing more scholarship on these issues, and particularly on how the First Nations Cultural Safety Framework plays out in evaluation practice.
With the pervasiveness of COVID-19 in our world, it should not come as a surprise that evaluators are responding to the pandemic in constructive ways. Evaluators play an important role working with governments and non-governmental organisations to assess programs, policies and processes—which may have life and death consequences. Our two practice articles in this issue are both written with the pandemic in mind and it is good to see evaluation practitioners reflecting on their work in this difficult time. Kathryn Erskine and Matt Healy examine lessons they have learnt from evaluating a men’s digital mental health response. In this time of uncertainty the need for flexible responses that adapt to the changing contexts have never been greater, so the lesson about the need for ‘agile evaluation that can complement agile products’ (p. 26) is pertinent. I understand this from personal experience. I can’t count the number of times I have had to shift deadlines, reorganise site visits, and adjust expectations of outputs in the last two years because of COVID-19 lock-downs, lock-outs and hotspots. While I look forward to greater stability in the years ahead, I hope that our professional practice continues to be adaptable and flexible in response to the changing environments we work in. Milbert Gawaya’s practice article, in a similar vein, responds to the rapidly changing policy environment in health and human services with a discussion about rapid evaluation methods. Again, it is easy to see the justification for approaches in evaluation that respond quickly and effectively to the needs of policy-makers and planners.
Anthea Rutter’s interview with Nicole Tujague provides us with an evaluator perspective that is missing from the other articles. While adaptability, flexibility and cultural reflexivity are all important, so is ethical practice. Nicole discusses some of the practical ethical issues of conducting evaluations in Aboriginal communities from an Indigenous standpoint. A question that arises for me as a non-Indigenous academic is: In our attempts to respond quickly, flexibly and professionally, drawing on the best methodologies we can, and acting with integrity, how can we also ensure that we respond ethically to the changing environments we face? How can we ensure that the risks associated with change are adequately mitigated and the benefits for the people we are engaging with are maximised? Nicole highlights the importance of listening, and adds: ‘Try to ignore the timeframes which are put on you by the commissioners of evaluation, (if you can) and make sure you are alert to what is being said’ (p. 53). I think this is good advice.
Finally in this issue, Melissa Forbes’ book review provides a succinct summary of a recent book by Beverley and Etienne Wenger-Trayner. Melissa concludes that the authors argue ‘it is vitally important that we have both the tools and the theory to understand the value of learning to make a difference to things people care about within social learning spaces’ (p. 57). This statement prompted me to download the book for my future reading list. So often, we get caught up with the demands of funders, policy-makers and program managers that we can forget that programs and policies are mostly about people.