24 Aug Planning the Program Evaluation
Order Instructions
HW425 Unit 8 Assignment: Planning the Program Evaluation
Course Outcome addressed in this Assignment:
HW425-5: Develop a health promotion program evaluation plan.
Unit Outcomes addressed in this Assignment:
Describe types of program evaluation.
Determine the focus of the evaluation.
Write evaluation questions.
Identify methods of evaluation data collection.
Background: In your previous assignments, you completed most steps of the general planning process in developing a community-based health promotion program. Specifically, you assessed the health needs of the community, chose a health focus and a target population to serve, developed the program mission, goals, and objectives, considered funding, budgets and administrative tasks, designed the program intervention, and planned for program implementation. The next step in the planning process is designing the program evaluation plan.
Program evaluation is an ongoing process that can serve many purposes related to improving a program and supporting its intended outcomes. Some types of program evaluation can be conducted during the planning and implementation phases of the program. Other types of evaluation can be conducted after a program ends to determine its impact and establish outcomes. A robust program evaluation will include more than one type of evaluation. Although variations exist, evaluations usually follow a general process that includes: engaging stakeholders, describing the program, establishing the evaluation focus, and gathering, analyzing, and reporting data.
The design and focus of the program evaluation should be guided by stakeholder input. Specifically, what do stakeholders want to know about the program? Stakeholders need a consistent description of the program to inform their input. Based on the stakeholders input, evaluation questions are developed that will guide the rest of the evaluation design. The evaluation questions determine which types of evaluation are necessary and appropriate. All evaluations require the collection and analysis of data. Data collection and analysis must be carefully planned to ensure that all of the evaluation questions can be addressed. Plans should be made to communicate the results of the evaluation to program stakeholders and consideration given to the process of incorporating lessons learned from the evaluation.
Instructions:
In this Assignment, you will create an evaluation plan for your community-based health promotion program.
Your Assignment should be approximately 3–4 pages in length, written in primarily essay format. Each of the items listed (except the summarizing conclusion) should be supported by relevant, *highly credible sources and include appropriate supporting citations and references in APA format.
*Highly credible sources include: course materials, governmental agency websites, nonprofit and philanthropic organization websites, textbooks, scholarly sources.
Highly credible sources do not include: commercialized websites, blogs, popular media magazines and websites.
Please consult your instructor if the suitability of a source is in question.
Address the following topics:
Write an introduction that describes the purpose of program evaluation and briefly describes what is meant by process and outcome evaluation, and explains why program evaluation is a critical part of health promotion programs.
Write a summary that describes the community and target population, the program mission, the program goals, the program objectives, and the primary intervention strategies.
Write a paragraph describing at least 3 stakeholders in your program and indicate at least one area of evaluation interest for each.
Based upon the areas of stakeholder interests you identified, write at least five (5) evaluation questions for your program. You should have at least two (2) questions related to process/implementation evaluation and at least two (2) questions related to outcome evaluation. You may write more than 5 evaluation questions, but keep in mind that you will need to develop a plan to collect data for each question.
Complete an evaluation matrix based on the evaluation questions you developed. You may create your own matrix or use the template provided in Course Documents.
Based on the evaluation matrix, describe the process that will be used to gather credible data. Address the following:
Types of data
Methods for collecting data
Timing of data collection
Methods to ensure data quality
Write a summarizing conclusion that includes a description of how the evaluation results will be communicated, to whom the results will be communicated and how the results will be used to improve the program.
Submitting your work:
Make sure that you save a copy of your work. Submit your Assignment to the appropriate Dropbox.
View your graded work after your instructor has evaluated it.
