Dr. Coryn's curriculum vita. PDF

Dr. Coryn is the Director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Evaluation (IDPE) program at The Evaluation Center (EC) and an Assistant Professor in the Evaluation, Measurement, and Research (EMR) program in the College of Education’s Department of Educational Learning, Research, and Technology (ELRT) at Western Michigan University (WMU). He received a B.A. in Psychology from Indiana University (IU) in 2002 and a M.A. in Social Psychology in 2004, also from IU. He earned his Ph.D. in Evaluation under Dr. Michael Scriven in 2007 at WMU. As part of his ongoing professional development he is currently pursuing a M.S. in Statistics from Colorado State University (CSU) in their distance program, which he anticipates completing in 2013. He has published numerous scholarly, peer reviewed papers in journals such as the American Journal of Evaluation, Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, Chronic Illness, Current Research in Social Psychology, Evaluation Journal of Australasia, Health Services Research, International Criminal Justice Review, Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, New Directions for Evaluation, The Journal of Social Psychology, and The Qualitative Report, and has also authored and/or edited several books, book chapters, and monographs. He is currently the Managing Editor of the Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation. Additionally, he is a voting member of the Research Policies Council at WMU.

He has been involved in and led numerous research studies and evaluations across several substantive domains, including research and evaluation in education, science and technology, health and medicine, community and international development, and social and human services. Since obtaining his first graduate degree in 2004, he has served as the Principal Investigator, Co-Principal Investigator, or Methodologist for numerous research and evaluation grants and contracts (totaling nearly $3,000,000).

He has given numerous lectures, speeches, and workshops both nationally and internationally, including Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Nepal, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 2010 he began providing instruction at The Evaluators’ Institute (TEI), held annually in Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington. Additionally, he has worked and published with many of the field’s leading scholars including Tom D. Cook, J. Bradley Cousins, E. Jane Davidson, John A. Hattie, Michael Q. Patton, James R. Sanders, Michael Scriven, and Daniel L. Stufflebeam, among others. His awards include the American Evaluation Association (AEA) Marcia Guttentag Award (2008)—presented to a promising new evaluator during the first five years after completion of his or her Masters or Doctoral degree for early career contributions and whose work is consistent with the AEA Guiding Principles for Evaluators, the Michigan Association for Evaluation (MAE) John A. Seeley Friend of Evaluation Award (2008), the Indiana University Award for Graduate Research Excellence (2004), the Indiana University Student Mentor Academic Research Team (SMART) Merit Award for Outstanding Research (2002), and the Indiana University James R. Haines Award for Outstanding Research in Psychology (2002).

Dr. Coryn’s research interests and agenda, although multifaceted, emphasizes the empirical study of evaluation theory, practice, and methodology. In evaluation, such theories are intended to guide practice rather than explain phenomenon and they are prescriptions for the ideal. They address the focus and role of evaluation, specific questions to be studied, evaluator roles, design and implementation, anticipated benefits, and use of results. This agenda is premised on the assumption that evaluators seemingly often adapt concepts and methods with little knowledge to justify why certain evaluation practices produce particular kinds of results or are to be preferred over others. Largely, his approach to addressing such questions has been the identification, enumeration, and application of the key tenets proposed by dominant evaluation theorists and investigating the degree to which those tenets align with how evaluation is actually practiced. Secondary research interests include quantitative and qualitative research methodologies and psychometrics.