This episode features our conversation with Dr. Cynthia A. Tananis. Dr. Tananis has been an educator for more than 40 years, serving as a public school teacher and in a variety of administrative positions. Prior to her retirement in 2020, she served as an Associate Professor in Education Leadership at the University of Pittsburgh for 25 years.
At the University of Pittsburgh, she founded and served as the executive director of the Collaborative for Evaluation and Assessment Capacity (CEAC), a School of Education initiative that provides program evaluation services for schools and educational programs. Now in its 22nd year, CEAC continues to offer those services. Dr. Tananis has served in leadership positions in the American Evaluation Association and the Eastern Evaluation Research Society. Throughout her career, she has practiced, studied, and taught educational evaluation. In this conversation, we explore evolving conceptions of evaluation from its early roots in educational research with its emphasis on measurement toward a discursive form of evaluation that provides in-depth information to support decision-making and program improvement.
