American Evaluation Association

The American Evaluation Association (AEA) is a professional association for evaluators and those with a professional interest in the field of evaluation, including practitioners, faculty, students, funders, managers, and government decision-makers. , AEA has approximately 7057 members from all 50 US states and over 60 other countries.

Mission
The American Evaluation Association's mission is to:
 * Improve evaluation practices and methods
 * Increase evaluation use
 * Promote evaluation as a profession and
 * Support the contribution of evaluation to the generation of theory and knowledge about effective human action.

Guiding principles for evaluators
AEA Publishes the AEA: Guiding Principles for Evaluators, which set expectations for evaluators in the areas of: (a) systematic inquiry, (b) competence, (c) integrity/honesty, (d) respect for people, and (e) responsibilities for general and public welfare.

Publications
AEA sponsors two journals. The American Journal of Evaluation is published quarterly through SAGE Publications and includes individually peer-reviewed articles on a range of topics in the field. New Directions for Evaluation is a peer-reviewed thematic sourcebook published quarterly through Jossey-Bass/Wiley, with each issue focusing on a different topic or aspect of evaluation.

Topical interest groups
, AEA has 51 topically focused subgroups. Each subgroup develops a strand of content for the association's annual conference, and works to build a community of practice through various means.
 * Advocacy and Policy Change
 * Behavioral Health [formerly Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health]
 * Assessment in Higher Education
 * Business, Leadership, and Performance
 * Cluster, Multi-Site and Multi-Level Evaluation
 * Collaborative, Participatory & Empowerment Evaluation
 * College Access Programs
 * Community Psychology
 * Costs, Effectiveness, Benefits, and Economics
 * Crime and Justice
 * Data Visualization and Reporting
 * Disabilities and Other Vulnerable Populations
 * Disaster and Emergency Management Evaluation
 * Distance Education and Other Educational Technologies
 * Environmental Program Evaluation
 * Evaluating the Arts and Culture
 * Evaluation Managers and Supervisors
 * Evaluation Policy
 * Evaluation Use
 * Extension Education Evaluation
 * Feminist Issues in Evaluation
 * Government Evaluation
 * Graduate Student and New Evaluators
 * Health Evaluation
 * Human Services Evaluation
 * Independent Consulting
 * Indigenous Peoples in Evaluation
 * Integrating Technology into Evaluation
 * Internal Evaluation
 * International and Cross-Cultural Evaluation
 * Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Issues
 * Mixed Methods in Evaluation
 * Multiethnic Issues in Evaluation
 * Needs Assessment
 * Non-Profits and Foundations Evaluation
 * Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building
 * Prek-12 Educational Evaluation
 * Program Theory and Theory-Driven Evaluation
 * Program Design
 * Qualitative Methods
 * Quantitative Methods: Theory and Design
 * Research on Evaluation
 * Research, Technology, and Development Evaluation
 * Social Network Analysis
 * Social Work
 * Stem Evaluation
 * Systems in Evaluation
 * Teaching of Evaluation
 * Theories of Evaluation
 * Translational Research Evaluation
 * Youth Focus Evaluation

Merger of ERS and ENet
In 1986, the Evaluation Research Society and Evaluation Network merged to become the American Evaluation Association. The two associations had been conducting joint annual conferences for several years when ERS President Joseph Wholey contacted Evaluation Network President Michael Hendricks to suggest a formal merger of the two organizations.