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Improving the Evidence Base for Career Development Programs

Making Use of the Evaluation Profession and Positive Psychology Movement

School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences at Claremont Graduate University

Stewart I. Donaldson

School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences, Claremont Graduate University

The problem and the solution. Though much has been written on the topic of career development, the human resource development field has paid little attention to the ways in which career development programs are evaluated.The lack of sound evidence for the effectiveness of career development interventions may be because of the overreliance on Kirkpatrick's ubiquitous evaluation approach or that traditional research methods such as experimental and quasi-experimental designs are not appropriate or feasible in many organizational settings. In this article, we describe the growing profession and practice of evaluation and discuss how the positive psychology movement provides new insights into how career development programs may be evaluated.

Key Words: evaluation • positive psychology • appreciative inquiry

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