CHARACTER-MINDED EVALUATION: Recognizing and Activating the Essential Role of Character in High-Quality Evaluation

Character-minded evaluation is evaluation work that intentionally promotes and draws on the power of character virtues and practical wisdom to evaluate high-quality programs. High-quality evaluation is well-aligned, beneficial, sustainable, democratic, and culturally responsive. Character virtues and practical wisdom contribute to good evaluation and good evaluation practices contribute to character virtues and practical wisdom in a bi-directional relationship. In this chapter, we adapt the Jubilee Centre’s Framework for Character Education in Schools with a Relational Systems Evaluation approach to examine the bi-directional role of the building blocks of character and practical wisdom on evaluation. We discuss the definition and application of civic virtues (citizenship, community awareness, and service), moral virtues (empathy, intellectual humility, and respect), intellectual virtues (evaluative thinking, reflection, reasoning, and judgment), and performance virtues (confidence, perseverance, and teamwork). The role of character in evaluation capacity building is also discussed.