Ethical Agreements

One difference between evaluators and researchers is that evaluators are hired by clients. Many clients are new to evaluation or may have inappropriate views of the evaluator's role and the nature of evaluation work. For this reason and many others, the evaluator-client relationship is fraught with potential ethical conflicts.

The Program Evaluation Standards and the Guiding Principles for Evaluators both speak to agreements between clients and evaluators. The standards give particular attention to formal agreements. In practice, however, evaluation contracts often focus on the evaluation plan and budget. Written agreements specifying the roles and responsibilities of the evaluator, the client, and other stakeholders can be useful in clarifying expectations and avoiding some, though certainly not all, future ethical dilemmas.

Ethical agreements may address the responsibilities of the evaluator; the roles of clients, program staff and participants, and other stakeholders; methodological issues; and interpretation and use of results. Many evaluators choose to share the Guiding Principles or Program Evaluation Standards with clients to educate them about evaluators' ethical obligations. Although the specific content of ethical agreements will differ with the nature of the evaluation, a few common areas will be discussed here.

Evaluators are ethically bound to include different stakeholders and to consider the public interest. Clients new to evaluation may consider themselves to be the sole audience for the study and may be unaware of evaluators' broader obligations. Although evaluators' actions in regard to the public good may be difficult to anticipate, the role of the client and other stakeholder groups at each stage of the evaluation can be delineated as a first step in raising the client's awareness of the evaluator's active role in involving other groups.

The collection and management of data have important ethical implications. The evaluator and client must agree on the use of informed consent and confidentiality and the means for maintaining promised confidentiality. Who will manage, store, and keep the data? Under what circumstances, if any, will the client and other stakeholders be provided access to raw data? How will confidentiality of these data be maintained?

The interpretation and reporting of results is another thorny area. In many cases, evaluators seek input from clients and other stakeholders on draft reports, but the final report is the evaluator's domain. Evaluators have responsibilities for ensuring that results are disseminated [Page 131]in appropriate ways to different stakeholders. Who will write or present results to various audiences? What role will clients and stakeholders have in presenting and disseminating results? In making choices about the information presented to each audience?

Written agreements cannot incorporate all potential ethical conflicts because al possibilities cannot be foreseen at the time the agreement is written. Contractualism, or blindly following the contract, can also lead to ethical mistakes. Nevertheless, the evaluator has a responsibility to educate clients about ethical issues that arise in evaluation and about the evaluator's ethical obligations. Ethical agreements provide the means for opening this discussion and clarifying responsibilities so that the rights of the client, program participants, other stakeholders, and the public, as well as the integrity of the evaluation, are preserved.

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