Research‐on‐Evaluation Articles Published in the <i>American Journal of Evaluation</i>, 1998–2014

Abstract

Abstract Prominent evaluators have advocated over the years for research on evaluation (RoE), yet to our knowledge, studies about the number and percentage of RoE studies that have been published do not exist. In this chapter, we present a summary of the RoE articles, categorized by several descriptive characteristics, that have been published in the American Journal of Evaluation (AJE), the flagship journal of the American Evaluation Association. We show that (a) about half of AJE articles can be considered RoE, (b) the percentage per year tended to increase through 2011, (c) half of the RoE articles addressed evaluation independent of a professional domain, (d) about one‐third were single case studies or surveys, and (e) the topics of the research have varied considerably. We conclude by arguing for continued documentation of RoE and for the development of an electronic database for evaluators seeking empirical evidence to address common evaluation issues.