Evaluators routinely face two challenges: how to meaningfully engage stakeholders in evaluation processes, and how to communicate findings in ways that land. Traditional approaches to both tend to rely on familiar formats: workshops, surveys, slide decks, reports. These have their place, but they often struggle to hold attention, surface diverse perspectives, or make complex ideas accessible and memorable.

Game design offers a different set of tools. Games are structured systems built on core design principles including rules, mechanics, feedback loops, challenge, interaction, and narrative. These principles are not unique to entertainment. They are transferable to evaluation practice, and once understood, can be applied across a range of purposes: from engaging communities in Theory of Change processes, to communicating evaluation findings to diverse audiences, to building shared understanding of complex systems.

This workshop introduces the foundations of game design and applies them directly to evaluation contexts. It is structured around two core applications. The first focuses on using game design principles to engage: how mechanics like role assignment, constrained choice, and structured interaction can deepen stakeholder participation in evaluation and program design processes. The second focuses on using game design principles to communicate: how narrative, visual design, and feedback loops can make evaluation findings more accessible, interactive, and useful to decision-makers and communities.

Workshop content

Over the course of the workshop, participants will:

1. Learn the core principles of game design and how they relate to evaluation practice
   
2. Explore how game mechanics can be used to strengthen stakeholder engagement in evaluation processes including Theory of Change development, co-design, and data collection
   
3. Examine how game design thinking can improve how evaluation findings are communicated and used
   
4. Apply these principles in a guided sketching exercise, developing a prototype for a gamebased tool relevant to their own evaluation context
   

The workshop involves a mix of short lectures, facilitated discussion, worked examples of game-based tools designed for evaluation and engagement contexts, and a hands-on design exercise. Participants will work individually and in small groups, with structured reflection throughout to connect learning to their own practice.

AES Competency Framework Alignment

This workshop aligns with competencies in the AES Evaluators’ Professional Learning Competency Framework.

The identified domains are:

• Domain 1 – Evaluative attitude and professional practice;
  
• Domain 3 – Culture, stakeholders and context;
  
• Domain 6 – Interpersonal skills;
  
• Domain 7 – Evaluation Activities.

Who should attend?

Foundation / Intermediate The workshop is suited to evaluators, program designers, commissioners, and capability builders looking to expand their methodological toolkit with creative, interactive approaches. A basic understanding of evaluation is beneficial to make the most of learning..

About the facilitator

Matt Healey is Principal Consultant and Co-Founder at First Person Consulting, where his practice sits at the intersection of evaluation, systems thinking, and design. Over 10 years and nearly 200 projects, Matt has developed a distinctive approach to designing interactive tools for complex professional contexts. His portfolio of game-based designs spans multiple formats and purposes: Catalyst, a card game for teaching systems thinking in strategy and evaluation contexts; Fusion, an upcoming semi-competitive game on Theory of Change; a character-builder approach derived from role-playing games for professional development planning called The VALUE System; and a suite of card-based tools for place-based evaluation developed through his CECAN Research Fellowship. Matt’s passion is the use of different approaches - including games and game play - in design, implementation, and evaluation of impact.

This full-day workshop brings together best practice in rubrics with best practice in evaluative reasoning: developmental rubrics. A powerful tool for qualitative, growth-oriented program evaluation, developmental rubrics offer deeper insights for monitoring, evaluation, and learning at any point in a program’s lifecycle by replacing traditional static ratings with nuanced performance descriptors. Workshop participants will learn the basics, practise on examples, and create developmental rubrics for their own projects.

Workshop content

Specific Objectives / Learning Outcomes

Participants will learn to:

1. Distinguish between developmental and traditional rubrics
   
2. Design rubrics that capture stages of progress with clear criteria and descriptive indicators
   
3. Apply these rubrics to real-world program and systems evaluation contexts
   
4. Avoid common pitfalls such as pseudocounting and overly vague language

Knowledge, Techniques, and Practices

Drawing on educational research and established frameworks, the workshop emphasises:

1. Structuring effective rubrics with progressive, observable quality markers
   
2. Integrating rigorous evaluative reasoning into rubric design
   
3. Providing meaningful feedback for decisionmaking and stakeholder engagement
   

Teaching / Learning Strategies

This interactive session uses hands-on activities, small-group discussions, and case studies to guide participants in creating or refining their own developmental rubrics. Templates, sample rubrics, and follow-up materials will be provided to enable immediate application.

AES Competency Framework Alignment

This workshop aligns with competencies in the AES Evaluators’ Professional Learning Competency Framework.

The identified domains are:

• Domain 2 – Evaluation theory;
  
• Domain 3 – Culture, stakeholders and context.

Who should attend?

Foundation / Intermediate Designed for evaluators, commissioners, and policymakers with foundational to intermediate experience in evaluation, though no prior rubricwriting expertise is required. Familiarity with basic evaluation concepts is helpful but not mandatory.

About the facilitator

Ben Lawless has 14 years of experience across educational assessment and evaluation. He tutors in evaluation at the University of Melbourne and specialises in designing and using rubrics, applying the logic of evaluation to generate clear information about levels of skill and performance. His work focuses on developmental rubrics and how they can be used to support judgement, feedback, and learning. He runs an education consultancy and has delivered over 40 public presentations and workshops in the past two years on developmental rubric writing, including a rubrics workshop at the most recent Australian Evaluation Society conference. He is currently working with Associate Professor Amy Gullickson on developing a competency framework for evaluators.

Have you ever felt baffled by the academic jargon of evaluation methods and skipped to the conclusions of a paper or report hopeful that the author “knew what they were doing”? Or have you felt uncertain about the right way to interpret and assess either qualitative or quantitative methods? The purpose of this workshop is to increase the understanding of core methods and the ability to critique qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods for evaluation. The goal is for participants to apply the learnings of the workshop to increase rigour of method whether they are evaluators or commissioners of evaluation.

The workshop will be interactive, involve the sharing of experiences as well as hands-on exercises. Practical strategies, “how to” and checklists will be provided, discussed and put to the test without the technical or research jargon.

Participants will learn the essentials of qualitative and quantitative methods, their theoretical underpinnings and the fundamental differences between methods and effective ways of combining them for mixed method. They will gain practical skills in cutting to the core of which evaluation findings and recommendations are made. Checklists and other practical strategies are introduced for judging method and improving rigour.

Workshop content

Content includes:

1. Basic principles foundations and principles of qualitative and quantitative methods, their strengths, limitations and fundamental differences;
   
2. Understanding sampling, data collection and analysis and similarities and differences for quantitative and qualitative;
   
3. Practical strategies using checklists, questions and other strategies to assess strength of evidence and identify ways of improving rigour of method;
   
4. Practical application of kills to real-life evaluation findings based on qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods.
   

Real-life examples will be included in the activities. In addition, participants will be provided opportunities to apply the learned skills to their own work.

Learning Outcomes

This workshop is for evaluators, evaluation commissioners and other professionals who would like to:

1. Understand the essentials of quantitative and qualitative methods, their theoretical underpinnings and the difference between them
   
2. Apply practical strategies to assess qualitative and quantitative methodologies
   
3. Use checklists to assess credibility of evidence;
   
4. Identify weaknesses and strengthen methods;
   
5. Confidently apply or challenge evaluation findings.

AES Competency Framework Alignment

This workshop aligns with competencies in the AES Evaluators’ Professional Learning Competency Framework.

The identified domains are:

• Domain 1 – Evaluative attitude and professional practice;
  
• Domain 2 – Evaluation theory;
  
• Domain 3 – Culture, stakeholders and context;
  
• Domain 5 – Project management.

Who should attend?

Foundation / Intermediate Evaluators, evaluation commissioners and other professionals interested in strengthening their understanding of evaluation methods.

About the facilitator

Samantha Abbato is a senior evaluation consultant with more than twenty years of experience and strong methodological expertise across a range of qualitative and quantitative disciplines. Sam’s academic grounding in quantitative methods is built upon a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physiology, a Master’s of Public Health and a PhD in epidemiology and biostatistics. She has extensive qualitative training in medical anthropology (PhD, UC Berkeley). This varied academic background enables the facilitator to draw on deep knowledge and examples of critical thinking across numerous disciplines and to bring them to the evaluation context.

Sam employs a utilisation-focused approach to evaluation practice and consistently uses mixed methods, case studies and collaborative processes that consistently incorporate skills transfer to clients. Since 2013, she has introduced a pictures, stories and play approach to evaluation and evaluation capacity building. Using cartoons, animation, and checklists, Visual Insights People has created a range of engaging evaluation training tools for use in AES workshops and client team training.

This half-day workshop will build participants’ ability to identify and address ethical issues at each stage of evaluation, from design through data collection and analysis to formulating recommendations and reporting findings. Participants will receive checklists and tools and will practise applying them through interactive exercises and discussions.

This half-day workshop will build participants’ ability to identify and address ethical issues at each stage of evaluation, from design through data collection and analysis to formulating recommendations and reporting findings. Participants will receive checklists and tools developed for this workshop by the Co-Chairs of the AES ‘Ethics in Evaluation’ Special Interest Group, and will practise applying them to their own projects, aided by presentations, scenarios and interactive exercises followed by small group discussions. (Additional materials have been developed for participants – practitioners or commissioners – who may not have suitable projects to work on, but who want to learn how to apply the tools and checklists.)

Workshop content

Four topics will be covered in the workshop.

• Where do I start? – This initial element includes exercises where participants self-assess their strengths and weaknesses in ethical practice. Topics include awareness of ethical requirements and of existing resources and – based on recent research – will identify their own personal values and how these are likely to affect how they deal with ethical issues.
  
• What’s the issue? – Step by step checklists will enable participants to identify ethical issues at the evaluation design stage, addressing topics such as cultural safety, informed consent, confidentiality, and meeting professional standards suitable for the paradigm they are working in.
  
• What now? – Participants will be given tools to support them in resolving unanticipated ethical issues that may arise in the course of an evaluation, and that require a quick response.
  
• The final element of the workshop will provide tools to help address some of the trickiest ethical dilemmas, including balancing conflicting ethical commitments, and managing power disparities (both those where the evaluator has power relative to vulnerable participants and those where the evaluator may feel disempowered by powerful commissioners, evaluands, or users).
  

By the end of the session, participants will have a set of ethics tools they can use immediately and re-use in future evaluations, and greater awareness of ethical issues, available resources and techniques to address ethical issues in evaluation.

AES Competency Framework Alignment

This workshop aligns with competencies in the AES Evaluators’ Professional Learning Competency Framework.

The identified domains are:

• Domain 1 – Evaluative attitude and professional practice;
  
• Domain 3 – Culture, stakeholders and context;
  
• Domain 6 – Interpersonal skills.

Who should attend?

Foundation / Intermediate This is a foundational skills workshop, although may be of use to evaluators and evaluation commissioners with intermediate and advanced skills if they are facing ethical challenges and want better tools to address them.

About the facilitators

Emma Williams is a Credentialed Evaluator with experience in realist, observational and participatory evaluations, each providing different (although sometimes overlapping) ethical issues. Further ethical insights have come from her evaluations on aspects of urban development, throughcare, family violence, service access, employment, environmental issues, and international development. Emma has been involved in both the current and previous update of AES ethics documents, and is Co-Chair of the AES Ethics in Evaluation Special Interest Group. A former Associate Professor at Charles Darwin University, she has presented and published on multiple aspects of evaluation ethics, and was co-editor with Ana Manzano of Realist Evaluation: Principles and Practice (2024/25). Emma is currently undertaking a realist investigation of evaluation ethics for a PhD that also uses Q methodology and would love to talk about evaluation ethics with anyone at the conference.

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HALF DAY AFTERNOON WORKSHOP  

From overwhelmed to empowered: using digital tools and AI for community-centred evaluation

presented by Ethel Karskens and Maree Dibella   |  FOUNDATION / INTERMEDIATE 

Workshop description

Maree Dibella is a Senior Digital Consultant at Clear Horizon, specialising in translating evaluation frameworks into practical, usable digital systems. She brings deep expertise in data modelling, dashboard development and reporting architecture, with particular strength in Power BI, building end-to-end reporting solutions that turn complex operational data into clear, decision-ready insights for program teams and leadership. Maree’s work sits at the intersection of evaluation, digital capability and organisational reality. She is technically rigorous, yet attentive to user experience, accessibility and the day-to-day constraints of community organisations. She designed and delivered a four-module Power BI training program for evaluators and analysts as part of the Investing in Women initiative across Asia, covering data transformation, AI-assisted workflows and user-centred dashboard design for mixed-ability cohorts. Participants described her as “a top trainer, very calm and very patient”.