Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2022

DOI

10.1177/13563890221088871

Publication Title

Evaluation

Volume

28

Issue

2

Pages

231-251

Abstract

While “systemic thinking” is popular in the context of capacity development and evaluation, there is currently a lack of understanding about the benefits to employing systems theory in evaluation capacity development. Systems theory provides a useful orientation to the work involved in complex systems (e.g. national evaluation systems). This article illustrates how evaluation capacity development practitioners can use systems theory as a conceptual tool to gain a better understanding of the functional aspects and interrelationships present within a given evaluation system. Specifically, the systems theory perspective can help elucidate the reasons for the success or failure of a given evaluation capacity development program or activity. With the goal of motivating evaluation capacity development practitioners to use systems theory in their work, this article presents a systems theory framework for evaluation capacity development and offers practical examples of how it can be adopted.

Comments

© The Authors 2022

This article is published under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.

ORCID

0000-0001-9452-9105 (Keating)

Original Publication Citation

Klier, S. D., Nawrotzki, R. J., Salas-Rodríguez, N., Harten, S., Keating, C. B., & Katina, P. F. (2022). Grounding evaluation capacity development in systems theory. Evaluation, 28(2), 231-251. https://doi.org/10.1177/13563890221088871

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