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Overview of Certificates

The Evaluators' Institute® offers certificates for professional evaluators. Three of these are course-based and the fourth is competency based. These are offered to assist you in planning a program of study in evaluation and to provide public acknowledgement of completion of this study. They are:

The certificates differ in the breadth and depth of subject matter to which the candidates are exposed, and the amount of coursework. Each focuses on important knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for the conduct of evaluations that are valid, informative, and useful to stakeholders. (If, after reading the following information and the certificate-specific pages, you still have questions, try frequently-asked questions. To go directly to comments from advisors and reviewers, click here.)

The certificates are meant to augment and enhance the learning students acquire from institutions of higher education, and to offer alternative ways for individuals to add to their knowledge and skills for practicing evaluation. The certificates and supporting curricula identify a range of subject matter needed for the conduct of high quality evaluations and TEI provides courses to help evaluators acquire knowledge and skills in the content areas. Each topic listed in the certificate descriptions as required or elective is matched to a specific course within TEI's curriculum, either current or future.

The Certificates

Persons who complete the first-level certificate (in Evaluation Practice) and become knowledgeable in subject matter depicted in the required and elective topics should understand what is needed to produce valid and useable evaluations. Those who complete the second level certificate (Advanced Evaluation Practices) and become skilled in the subject matter should have an increased breadth and depth of understanding of the comprehensive array of approaches and theories of evaluation practice and thus a greater repertoire of skills for tailoring evaluations to programs that vary in nature and scope and serve diverse audiences. Individuals who complete the Certificate in Quantitative Evaluation Methods and acquire knowledge and skills in the identified subject matter areas should be more proficient in the use of quantitative designs and analyses to investigate the outcomes, impacts, and effectiveness of programs in ways to explain how programs work for what types of persons and under what circumstances. The capstone experiences of the Master Evaluator Certificate (future) is being designed to present opportunities for candidates to demonstrate that they can make practical application of previously studied concepts and theories.

The CEP, CAEP, and CQEM call for participants to attend courses and take part in any on-site application exercises. The CEP is a prerequisite for CAEP. The CQEM may be pursued independently of the others but is recommended as a step beyond the first-level Certificate in Evaluation Practice.

Nearly all courses for the certificates have been taught in previous TEI programs in some form. A few are currently in development. Almost all courses taught in previous programs can be applied toward the certificates, which means that many TEI past participants have already satisfied a number of the requirements for one or more certificates. (Transcripts will be prepared for individuals for individuals who wish to review a record of courses in which they were enrolled.) In certain instances, to be determined on an individual basis, college credit for a semester length course within the past five years may be substituted for a TEI course. Substitutions will be permitted for up to one third (10 days) of the requirements for a particular TEI certificate. 

We believe the certificate program of The Evaluators' Institute will be beneficial to individual evaluators, to the organizations for which they work, and to the evaluation profession. The ultimate goal, of course, is to improve the quality of programs that provide services to our citizens. We also believe that:

  • The more knowledge and skills evaluators have, the more confidently and effectively they will produce and disseminate knowledge about what programs work, for whom, and under what circumstances.
  • Those who study the required and elective subject matter depicted in the certificates will be better evaluation practitioners than those who have not had exposure to these topics.
  • Those who want to be professionals in this field will be active learners while in the courses and when they return to their home settings. We know The Evaluators' Institute cannot require attendees to learn, but we do try hard to make it possible for them to do so.

Need for the Certificate Programs

Several indices show that the need for post university training in evaluation is acute. The number of institutions of higher education in the United States offering a degree program or even the opportunity for a person to take a sequence of courses in evaluation has steadily dwindled: from 44 in 1986, to 38 in 1993, to 26 in 2000 (Engle, Molly and James W. Altschuld. 2004. "An update on university-based evaluation training," The Evaluation Exchange, IX-4). The turnover in practicing evaluators from year to year is enormous; every day people with no training or knowledge of the field assume evaluation responsibilities (House, Ernest personal communication, 2004).

TEI has been offering courses since 1996 and during that time we have come to understand some of the different circumstances that bring individuals to the profession and to our courses. Several scenarios are described below. The one characteristic these practicing evaluators tend to have in common is that they cannot take the time away from their full-time jobs and their families to go to a university to pursue a degree or to take semester-length courses.

The most-common situation that brings participants to TEI courses is when they are assigned evaluation tasks as a part of their employment responsibilities, and often with a very short time between assignment of an evaluation project and when they are expected to perform the work, i.e., when they are to put their evaluation skills to the test. TEI permits them to learn a great deal about evaluation in a short time and under circumstances when they are most motivated to learn. In addition, these participants are able to establish a network of individuals (TEI faculty and participants) working on similar programs or with similar constituents with whom they can consult on an as-needed basis.

Other participants have many years of experience and are very knowledgeable and skilled evaluators. They attend TEI courses because they want to learn about new evaluation approaches or the latest research on a given topic or simply to renew knowledge they have not used for a while. They pick and choose courses to help them to become current in their knowledge and to conduct studies of a different nature than they have done in the past.

Many course attendees have recently selected evaluation as a profession. They have academic degrees in other areas but have never studied evaluation methodology. They choose not to pursue another degree at a university or to enroll in individual semester length courses, but they will and do hire themselves out for evaluation work. TEI provides them the chance to take short, targeted courses that require commitment but do not demand major life-style changes to secure the knowledge and skills they need to practice in the field. They are going to practice evaluation; TEI simply makes it possible for them to learn to do the work at a higher level of quality and to upgrade their skills over time, one subject at a time.

Graduate students also attend TEI classes. Many of them are interested in evaluation as a career but their universities do not offer courses in evaluation practices. They are usually able to access courses in research methods, statistics, and evaluation design, but do not have opportunities to engage in the study of such critical evaluation practice subjects as working with stakeholders, evaluation standards and ethics, and managing studies in the field. They can study these subjects through TEI courses and can choose from an array of subject matter covering various evaluation approaches that would be hard to find in any one program or single university department. TEI provides a way for graduate students to expand and enrich their academic studies and to gain exposure to a broad view of evaluation from the diverse array of teachers and evaluation scholars who lead the classes.

Various reasons bring people to these courses, but those who participate are very serious about their learning and want practical information they can immediately use to improve their evaluation practice. Setting for the Certificates.

The coursework required for the CEP and CAEP (30 days each) approximate the time a full-time student would spend in class during an academic semester. TEI courses are formal in-depth explorations of course content that take place over a few days of time. The concentrated time (1-4 days per course) allows TEI participants to focus on a particular subject in an environment relatively free of the usual job and home distractions. TEI students are expected to read and further their learning outside the actual hours spent in class. This expectation is aided through the provision of textbooks, in-class materials (e.g., course outlines and topic bibliographies), and through networking opportunities with other professionals who attend classes. The potential for learning inside and outside the classroom is expanded for TEI students because of the diversity of those who provide the instruction and those who attend the classes. The typical faculty member is one who is nationally or internationally recognized for expertise in evaluation theory and practice. Within the time of one week, a TEI student may have personal access to the knowledge and experience of as many as 10 different faculty members from different universities and countries as a result of in-class time and after-class consultations. In addition, they are provided opportunities to interact with the remarkably diverse group of professionals who attend the classes plus others who come to the evening sessions that are provided each week of a TEI program. TEI participants are affiliated with many different organizations in the U.S. and abroad, work on a wide variety of programs, and represent a rich mix of personal and cultural backgrounds and experiences as program developers, administrators, and evaluators. (Examples of organizations represented by previous TEI students and parts of the world from whence they came can be found elsewhere on the website.)