Dr. Sandra Ayoo, an assistant professor in the Department of Information, Library, and Research Sciences, and educational research methodology (ERM) doctoral students Meghan Leeming and Dr. Stacy Huff have received the Australian Evaluation Society’s (AES) Evaluation Journal of Australasia (EJA) Publication Award for Excellence. Their article, “Meta-evaluation: Validating program evaluation standards through the United Nations Evaluation Quality Assessment (EQAs),” was recognized as the best article published in the journal over the past year. The award was presented at the AES 2025 Gala Dinner in September, where Ayoo accepted the honor on behalf of the team.
This recognition crowns a collaboration that began in 2021, when Leeming and Huff were both doctoral students in the ERM program. Along the way, the team presented their early findings at the Canadian Evaluation Society International Conference in June 2022, engaging with colleagues and refining their work before its eventual publication. Since publication, Huff has graduated with a Ph.D. in Program Evaluation (Spring 2025), and Leeming is preparing to graduate with a Ph.D. in Measurement. Their success reflects the School of Education’s deep commitment to mentorship and to engaging students in research that makes a global impact.
The team’s article tackles one of the field’s most pressing questions: how to define “high-quality” evaluations while ensuring that social justice is central to evaluation practice. To explore this, they reviewed meta-evaluation literature, mapped the American Evaluation Association’s foundational documents against the United Nations Evaluation Group’s Norms and Standards to study their intersection on social justice, and analyzed 62 evaluation reports from the United Nations Population Fund together with their management responses. Their findings revealed that social justice in evaluation is not something that can be guaranteed by standardized guidelines; instead, it depends on context and requires evaluators to make intentional choices to embed equity, fairness, and human rights in their work.
The article makes four original contributions to evaluation practice and theory, demonstrating that meta-evaluation and attention to social justice are shaped by context rather than by universal rules. Drawing on the United Nations’ deliberate integration of gender and human rights, it shows how these priorities have strengthened evaluation design, methodology, recommendations, and management responses. In doing so, it highlights the evaluator’s responsibility to choose quality assurance tools suited to their specific context while keeping equity and justice at the center. By linking technical rigor with the imperative of social justice, the study underscores that evaluations must not only meet professional standards but also address human rights, gender equality, and the needs of marginalized communities. Ultimately, it calls for a shared professional language to define what constitutes “high-quality” evaluation and to guide future meta-evaluation efforts – a framework with broad global significance.
Since its publication in December 2023, the article has been downloaded more than 600 times, signaling its influence and reach across the international evaluation community. Already, it is shaping conversations about how evaluation can serve as a tool for fairness and inclusion on a global scale.
Reflecting on the recognition, Ayoo said, “This award is especially meaningful because it recognizes collaborative work that bridges rigorous research with the values of equity, human rights, and social justice. It was an honor to mentor Meghan and Stacy on this project and to see our collective efforts contribute to advancing the field of evaluation in ways that can make a difference globally.”
This award highlights not only the outstanding scholarship of faculty and students but also the university’s mission to advance research that makes a difference in the world.
You can read the full article at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1035719X231220979.
