Writing and research
Our approach rests on published work and on research done in the field. Here is where to read more.
Recent writing
AEA365 is the daily blog of the American Evaluation Association. These posts are listed from newest to oldest. Each link opens the post on the AEA365 site.
-
Blog post · AEA365 · October 21, 2026
AI and Evaluation: Validation, Integration, and Training
David Fetterman and Paul St. Roseman
How The Just Trust checks AI summaries against its own interviews, uses AI to draft logic models and early findings, and trains its staff to do this work.
-
Blog post · AEA365 · April 10, 2026
Gestalt Empowerment Evaluation: Building an AI-Driven Evaluation Knowledge Base (GPT) and an Evaluation Repository (NotebookLM)
David Fetterman and Paul St. Roseman
How The Just Trust used an AI assistant built on its own data, and a shared library of resources, to build its evaluation skill.
-
Blog post · AEA365 · August 22, 2025
AI-Informed Empowerment Evaluation
David Fetterman and Paul St. Roseman
An early look at how AI can support empowerment evaluation while people keep control of the meaning.
-
Blog post · AEA365 · May 11, 2025
Ray-Ban Meta Glasses: Pictures, Music, and Translations for Evaluation
David Fetterman, Paul St. Roseman, and David Fetterman II
How smart glasses can take photos and video, and translate speech, while an evaluator stays in the conversation.
-
Blog series · AEA365 · December 27 to 30, 2023
Walking Our Talk
Sharon Twitty, Natalie Lenhart, and Paul St. Roseman
A four-part series on our evaluation work with ARCHES from 2016 to 2023. It shows how a logic model grew into the ARCHES Collaborative Diagnostic Tool (ACDT), and how partners learned to read their own data together.
- Part 1. Laying the Foundation: The Rise of the Logic Model
- Part 2. Using the Data: Emerging a Data Informed Evaluation Design through Peer Editing
- Part 3. New Insights: Emerging a Collaborative Diagnostic Tool and Data Visualization
- Part 4. Charting the Course of Data Use: Collaborative Data Analysis
-
Blog post · AEA365 · May 19, 2016
Connecting Evaluation with Learning and Leadership
Paul St. Roseman
How taking part in an evaluation changes the way people see their jobs, talk with each other, and lead. It introduces the framework Paul uses to track that growth.
Coming soon
-
Book chapter · Forthcoming
Gestalt Empowerment Evaluation: A Culturally Responsive AI-Driven Evaluation Approach
David Fetterman and Paul St. Roseman
To appear in the Handbook of Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Culturally Responsive Research. It gives the full statement of the method, its roots, and the steps for taking up AI.
How evaluation builds learning and leadership
Dr. St. Roseman's research examines how evaluation capacity building shapes the people who take part in it. By routinely reviewing published case studies alongside the context of his work in the field, he has developed a framework that tracks growth along three paths and across three areas.
Three paths of growth
- Formative. Plan the work and check readiness.
- Implementation. Do the work and reflect on it.
- Decision making. Use what was learned to decide and adjust.
Three areas where growth shows up
- Evaluation capacity building
- Leadership development
- Organizational learning culture
The paths look like a straight line, but in practice they are fluid and they repeat. The framework can help: (a) check an organization's evaluation skill, (b) track growth during an evaluation, and (c) look at long-term effects.
What is being learned from the research and practice
"[Evaluation capacity building] capacity to influence stakeholder development is strengthened when evaluation efforts are professionally relevant and provide increased opportunities for participation across an organization."
"Additionally the benefits of [evaluation capacity building] efforts deepen when participants are motivated, emotionally connected, and trusting of the experience."
"Across the data there is corroboration that newly developed [evaluation capacity building] processes and skills can be difficult to sustain and integrate within an organization."
His research also changed the question it set out to answer. In Dr. St. Roseman's words, it shifted the question from "Is evaluation capacity building impactful?" to "In what ways is evaluation capacity building impactful?"
Earlier work
-
Dissertation · Mills College · 2015
A Case Study of Evaluation Capacity Building's Influence on Stakeholder Learning and Leadership Development
Paul St. Roseman, Ed.D.
Available on request.
-
Presentation · American Evaluation Association · 2009
Hidden Possibilities
Paul St. Roseman
A look back at one evaluator's work helping grassroots community groups build, use, and keep their own evaluation systems. Available on request.
Want to learn more?
Ask us for a copy of any of these, or for a conversation about your work.