Thursday, May 2, 2024

Program Evaluation Guide Introduction

evaluation design

Formplus offers multiple form sharing options which enables you to easily share your evaluation survey with survey respondents. You can use the direct social media sharing buttons to share your form link to your organization’s social media pages. A case study is a research method that helps the researcher to gain a better understanding of a subject or process.

Methods

” Here you might determine that questions of efficiency and implementation are central to the evaluation. You would likely conclude this is a realistic focus, given the stage of development and the intensity of the program. Chapter 3 of the GAO Designing Evaluations handbook focuses on the process of selecting an evaluation design.

evaluation design

Types of Evaluation Designs

In many cases, the process of working with stakeholders to develop a clear and logical program description will bring benefits long before data are available to measure program effectiveness. The six connected steps of the framework are actions that should be a part of any evaluation. Although in practice the steps may be encountered out of order, it will usually make sense to follow them in the recommended sequence.

Three principle groups of stakeholders are important to involve:

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The term comparison group is more modest; it typically offers a community watched for similar levels of the problem/goal and relevant characteristics of the community or population (e.g., education, poverty). A common way to evaluate the effects of an independent variable is to use a control group. This group is usually similar to the participant group, but either receives no intervention at all, or receives a different intervention with the same goal as that offered to the participant group. A control group design is usually the most difficult to set up – you have to find appropriate groups, observe both on a regular basis, etc. – but is generally considered to be the most reliable. There are a number of variations on the interrupted time series theme, including varying the observation times; implementing the independent variable repeatedly; and implementing one independent variable, then another, then both together to evaluate their interaction. That gives an evaluator the opportunity not only to adjust the program, but to drop elements that have no effect.

Understanding exactly where the change came from or where the barriers to change reside, gives you the opportunity to adjust your program to take advantage of or combat those factors. If that’s not possible – if your program has a rolling admissions policy, or provides a service whenever people need it – and participants are all at different points, that can sometimes present research problems. You may want to evaluate the program’s effects only with new participants, or with  another specific group.

A new framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions: update of Medical Research Council guidance

Obtaining valuable feedback can be encouraged by holding discussions during each step of the evaluation and routinely sharing interim findings, provisional interpretations, and draft reports. In practice, when stakeholders articulate and negotiate their values, these become the standards to judge whether a given program's performance will, for instance, be considered "successful," "adequate," or "unsuccessful." The criteria used to select sources should be clearly stated so that users and other stakeholders can interpret the evidence accurately and assess if it may be biased. In addition, some sources provide information in narrative form (for example, a person's experience when taking part in the program) and others are numerical (for example, how many people were involved in the program). The integration of qualitative and quantitative information can yield evidence that is more complete and more useful, thus meeting the needs and expectations of a wider range of stakeholders.

Determining the Evaluation Focus

Refinement will be rare in the evaluation phase of efficacy and effectiveness research, where interventions will ideally not change or evolve within the course of the study. This recommended framework for program evaluation is both a synthesis of existing best practices and a set of standards for further improvement. It supports a practical approach to evaluation based on steps and standards that can be applied in almost any setting.

Framework/Guide

She was instructed to express her anxiety and nervousness about addressing these issues. Additionally, it was specified that she could not take a day off from work during this period. Despite this constraint, she required a dental consultation to receive advice for initial self-care, as her symptoms significantly impacted her daily life.

Module Resources

The lead evaluator should be willing and able to draw out and reconcile differences in values and standards among stakeholders and to work with knowledgeable stakeholder representatives in designing and conducting the evaluation. Program evaluation is one of ten essential public health services [8] and a critical organizational practice in public health. [9] Until recently, however, there has been little agreement among public health officials on the principles and procedures for conducting such studies.

Strategic selectivity often goes hand in hand with evaluability assessment (Wholey 1979), which covers such aspects as stakeholder interest and potential use, data availability, and clarity of the evaluand (for example, whether a clear theory of change underlies the evaluand). A proverb says that you never step in the same river twice, because the water that flows past a fixed point is always changing. Someone coming into a program at a particular time may have a totally different experience than a similar person entering at a different time, even though the operation of the program is the same for both. A particular participant may encourage everyone around her, and create an overwhelmingly positive atmosphere different from that experienced by participants who enter the program after she has left, for example. It’s very difficult to control for this kind of difference over time, but it’s important to be aware that it can, and often does, exist, and may affect the results of a program evaluation.

As part of approach papers and inception reports, a third tool is the use of a design matrix. For each of the main evaluation questions, this matrix specifies the sources of evidence and the use of methods. Design matrixes may also be structured to reflect the multilevel nature (for example, global, selected countries, selected interventions) of the evaluation. First, a common tool in IEOs (and similar evaluation functions) is some type of multicriteria approach to justify the strategic selectivity of topics or interventions for evaluation. This could include demand-driven criteria such as potential stakeholder use or supply-driven criteria such as the financial volume or size of a program or portfolio of interventions.

Whether the results seen in the program evaluation can be generalized to other settings. As part of the program, participants are required to weigh in 3 times over the weight loss period---at the beginning, at 3 months, and at 6 months. At the end of the three-month period, the goal is that individuals will be following their weight loss and diet plans, and have lost at least 10 pounds. Furthermore, the guide also supports evaluators to select the best technique for attempting to deal with non-equivalent comparison group issues in constructed matched comparison group designs.

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