As the Fall 2023 episode of New Directions in Evaluation, focused on “Evaluation and Artificial Intelligence,” and standing-room-only sessions at the October 2024 AEA Conference demonstrated, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in evaluation is a hot topic among evaluators. While there is not yet consensus about whether, when, and how AI tools can or should be used in our work, the conversation is lively. As our field grapples with these questions, we need to develop strategies to share this topic with our students, who are potential future evaluators, commissioners, and users of evaluation. Despite her own discomfort with the disruptions associated with AI, the presenter has accepted that generative AI tools and their outputs are relevant to Evaluator Competencies and need to be addressed with students. This presentation will outline potential risks and benefits of employing AI tools, describe how she brought them into the program evaluation classroom and discuss their impact in shaping undergraduate students’ mastery of program evaluation competencies and artificial intelligence (AI) literacy, measured via the AI Literacy Scale (AILS) (Wang, Tau, & Yuan, 2022) and Program Evaluation Competency Scale (PECS-17) (Hou, 2022).
Presenter Bio: Corrie Whitmore is an Associate Professor of Health Sciences at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Treasurer of the Alaska Evaluation Network, and Past President of the American Evaluation Association. She is a teacher of evaluation and practicing evaluator, working mostly with federally-funded Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder prevention and Substance Use Prevention and Treatment programs in or based out of Alaska.
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