A professional grounding and history of the development and formal use of evaluator competencies

This article provides background for the special issue. The authors first review the history of competency development in general and then in evaluation specifically. To date, the Canadian Evaluation Society and the Japanese Evaluation Society are the only professional organizations that have launched credentialing systems. However, increasing numbers of evaluation organizations and associations worldwide have developed lists of evaluator competencies, moving the field one step closer to professionalization. Although there are many viewpoints on the value of developing sets of evaluator competencies, there is currently a lack of empirical studies linking them to useful or sound evaluations.