| Abstract: | What types and levels of professional competency should an evaluator have? Should requisite competencies differ depending on the nature of an evaluation? Can a practical competency assessment approach be developed for use in educating highly qualified evaluation professionals? This article addresses these concerns by presenting a contingency model of evaluation competencies. Four broad categories of competency — policy analysis, administrative, interpersonal /personal, and technical — are identified along with three different levels or criteria of acceptable performance. Then several features of the evaluation context, including the evaluation type, the phase and the evaluator role, are individually analyzed to determine the required competencies implied by each. Based on this, a contingency model is developed that postulates requisite competency types and levels depending on a combination of contextual features. The article concludes that the model can usefully serve as a heuristic or organizing mechanism for assessing evaluation contexts and orienting the education of professional evaluators. |
