Fiona’s Case: An Ethical Dilemma for a Program Evaluator

Ethical dilemmas represent an important consideration for public policy and administration professionals. Organizational stakeholders and their values and principles present unique challenges for program evaluators. For this Discussion, review “Fiona’s Choice: An Ethical Dilemma for a Program Evaluator” on page 473 in the McDavid course text.

Post by Day 3 a response to the following:

• List values and principles that would be important to the main stakeholders in this situation, both for Fiona and the organization. Use the AEA’s guiding principles for evaluators as a guide. Explain the values and principles that you selected as important to the main stakeholders and how you would handle this situation.

Required resources:

• McDavid, J. C., Huse, I., & Hawthorn, L. R. L. (2013). Program evaluation and performance measurement: An introduction to practice (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  • Chapter 12, “The Nature and Practice of Professional Judgment in Program Evaluation” (pp. 439–478)
• Morris, M. (2011). The good, the bad, and the evaluator: 25 years of AJE ethics. American Journal of Evaluation, 32(1), 134–151. Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
• Picciotto, R. (2011). The logic of evaluation professionalism. Evaluation, 17(2), 165–180. Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
• Frierson, H. T., Hood, S., Hughes, G. B., & Thomas, V. G. (2010). A guide to conducting culturally responsive evaluations. In J. F. Westat (Ed.), The 2010 user-friendly handbook for project evaluation (pp. 75–93). Retrieved from https://www.westat.com/sites/westat.com/files/2010UFHB.pdf

Optional Resources

• American Evaluation Association. (2004). American evaluation association’s guiding principles for evaluators. Retrieved from http://www.eval.org/p/cm/ld/fid=51
• Ramirez, R., & Brodhead, D. (2013). Utilization focused evaluation: A primer for evaluators. Retrieved from http://evaluationinpractice.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ufeenglishprimer.pdf