From the Co-Editors: Complexity,Evaluation Use,and Causal Methods

We are pleased to welcome you to this first issue of the American Journal of Evaluation's 46th volume. The three research articles discuss matters of evaluating complex interventions, and matters of evaluation usefulness and use. Across them they use the methods of Contribution Analysis, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, and the Describe, Analyze, Theorize, Act framework—three approaches that leverage qualitative methods to enhance the causal inferences one can draw from an evaluation. We think these articles provide a nice complement to the four contributions—which also aim to support causal conclusions—that appear in the Experimental Methodology Section.

The lead article, titled Streamlining Complex Intervention Evaluation Through Participatory Systems Mapping and Contribution Analysis: A Comprehensive Framework for Actionable Complexity Evaluation, is by Salah Eddine Bouyousfi and Miché Ouedraogo. Contribution analysis is an approach that is well suited to evaluating complex interventions because it leverages a full theory of change, focusing on hypothesized causal pathways to validate them through observation. Notably, Bouyousfi and Ouedraogo combine Contribution Analysis with a Participatory Systems Mapping approach—capturing the varied perspectives of program and evaluation partners—to strengthen the conclusions from their analysis. Through an applied example, the authors demonstrate how this combination of methods can be useful.

Next, Tomasz Kupiec's article Motivation to Adopt Evaluation Practice as a Determinant of Evaluation Use uses Qualitative Comparative Analysis to identify the factors contributing to various classes of evaluation use. Like the Bouyousfi and Ouedraogo article, Kupiec's article contends with complexity—in this case, the complexity that stems from the various types of evaluation use and associated organizational factors, including their varied players and complex interactions, that lead to that use. The application of Qualitative Comparative Analysis to his topic offers a rigorous analysis leading to insightful, substantive inclusions alongside his methodological insights.

The third research article—Reflections on the Intersections Between Collaboration and Use in Evaluation Practice by Jeremy Acree, Tiffany Tovey, and Robert Petrulis—further examines the factors contributing to evaluation use; and, similar to the prior two articles, it elevates the role of evaluation partners in determining evaluation use. In their exploration, the authors use the Describe, Analyze, Theorize, Act (DATA) model to tease out how “shared ownership of the evaluation among intended users and evaluators… [can] increase the utility and use of evaluations.” We expect the reader will find value in both the methods and substance of all three of these research articles.

In addition to these three research articles, Section Editor Carl Westine summarizes the contributions of this issue's four Experimental Methodology Section articles, with a focus on how they advance our field's ability to design and analyze evaluation data that lead to identifying causal relationships.

In closing, we credit our predecessor Editor-in-Chief, George Julnes, who was the first to establish the Experimental Methodology Section in AJE. George also introduced the Economic Evaluation Section and refreshed the sections related to International Evaluation, and Ethics, Values, and Culture—as well as maintaining long standing sections such as the Book Review, Method Note Section, and Teaching and Learning. We believe this set of sections provides an opportunity for the journal to shine a light on key subsets of our very broad and diverse field. As such, we hope that the section organization provides value to our readers, allowing them to focus on certain issues and how the section contributions fit within our evolving field. George channeled his own expertise and his work, but he also served as a champion for others whose work was quite different from his. As we expect is the case for his editorial predecessors as well, serving as the AJE Editors-in-Chief implies a responsibility not only to reflect what we might personally and professionally be interested in, not only what is evident in the membership and topical interest groups within our sponsor association, but also more broadly in the scholarship and practice in the field. We hope our readers agree that this issue includes interesting, important, and diverse perspectives that will advance our field. We also look forward to bringing other interesting, important, and diverse perspectives in AJE issues yet to come.