If they are getting better, the program may be working. In addition, measuring over multiple time points can lead to a stronger, though still imperfect, sense of whether things are working. Imagine you have been implementing an SEL program for two years. You introduce an initiative to strengthen program implementation that you think will amplify the benefits of your program. If, after students have been exposed to that initiative, you see an acceleration in growth, it is likely to have something to do with the new initiative and program implementation.
The strongest evaluation designs include a control group. In simple terms, a control group is group of comparable students or classrooms or schools who do not receive the SEL program whose impact you are trying to assess. If the students in the treatment group do better after the program implementation than the students in the control group, this provides stronger evidence that it was the program itself that produced the result. My feeling? There is no one best design. I take that back: The best design is the one that will accomplish your specific program evaluation goals as economically as possible.
That involves weighing the pros and cons of evaluation design decisions against your specific goals. For better or for worse, there are no wrong answers; there are only tradeoffs.
What is important is that you design the evaluation study to meet your specific set of goals. If the goal is to see if measured competence is trending in the right direction after the introduction of a program, a pre-post design might be enough to at least give you a rough idea.
As with most things that involve assessment, being clear about your goals is absolutely necessary though not sufficient if you want to accomplish that goal. Designing and executing an effective program evaluation is no a simple matter. Most people who want to do so are not experts in research design. If your goal is anything more ambitious than a rough sense of the effectiveness of a program, I recommend consulting with someone with expertise in program evaluation to sort through design decisions, the resources required to pull off the evaluation, and to help with execution.
But to quote physicist Leonard Mlodinow, even a coin weighted toward failure will sometimes land on success. That is why we suggest testing many different approaches, initially with a modest investment e. There are many ways that the policy and research community can advance a tiered-evidence strategy. Policymakers can embed such a strategy in new government programs or retrofit existing programs to incorporate the approach here is a template.
In addition, individual government and philanthropic funders, program providers, and researchers can focus their efforts as our team does on advancing particular tiers within the strategy. These steps, if implemented widely in adherence to rigorous evidence standards, offer a path to progress in solving social problems that spending-as-usual cannot. Highlights: As discussed in our previous Straight Talk report , the pattern of disappointing effects in most rigorous program evaluations is compelling and needs to be taken seriously if we hope to make progress in solving social problems.
We suggest that policymakers, foundations, and researchers view this as the central challenge in social policy, and re-deploy program and research funding toward addressing it.
This Straight Talk report—the second in a two-part series—starts where part one left off: The bottom line is that it is harder to make progress [in solving social problems] than commonly appreciated…. Search for:. Subscribe to Our Newsletter.
This manual is organized by the six steps of the CDC Framework. Each chapter will introduce the key questions to be answered in that step, approaches to answering those questions, and how the four evaluation standards might influence your approach. The main points are illustrated with one or more public health examples that are composites inspired by actual work being done by CDC and states and localities.
Together, they build a house over a multi-week period. At the end of the construction period, the home is sold to the family using a no-interest loan. Lead poisoning is the most widespread environmental hazard facing young children, especially in older inner-city areas. Even at low levels, elevated blood lead levels EBLL have been associated with reduced intelligence, medical problems, and developmental problems. The main sources of lead poisoning in children are paint and dust in older homes with lead-based paint.
Public health programs address the problem through a combination of primary and secondary prevention efforts. A typical secondary prevention program at the local level does outreach and screening of high-risk children, identifying those with EBLL, assessing their environments for sources of lead, and case managing both their medical treatment and environmental corrections. However, these programs must rely on others to accomplish the actual medical treatment and the reduction of lead in the home environment.
A common initiative of state immunization programs is comprehensive provider education programs to train and motivate private providers to provide more immunizations. A typical program includes a newsletter distributed three times per year to update private providers on new developments and changes in policy, and provide a brief education on various immunization topics; immunization trainings held around the state conducted by teams of state program staff and physician educators on general immunization topics and the immunization registry; a Provider Tool Kit on how to increase immunization rates in their practice; training of nursing staff in local health departments who then conduct immunization presentations in individual private provider clinics; and presentations on immunization topics by physician peer educators at physician grand rounds and state conferences.
Minimalist theory of evaluation: The least theory that practice requires. American Journal of Evaluation ; Utilization-focused evaluation: The new century text. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, Study of participatory research in health promotion: Review and recommendations for the development of participatory research in health promotion in Canada. Ottawa, Canada : Royal Society of Canada , Health promotion evaluation: Recommendations to policy-makers: Report of the WHO European working group on health promotion evaluation.
Public health in America. Fall January 1, Ten organizational practices of public health: A historical perspective. American Journal of Preventive Medicine ;11 6 Suppl The program evaluation standards: How to assess evaluations of educational programs. The PRC program is a national network of 24 academic research centers committed to prevention research and the ability to translate that research into programs and policies. The centers work with state health departments and members of their communities to develop and evaluate state and local interventions that address the leading causes of death and disability in the nation.
Additional information on the PRCs is available at www. While inspired by real CDC and community programs, they are not intended to reflect the current. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to page options Skip directly to A-Z link. Section Navigation. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Syndicate. Minus Related Pages. On This Page. What Is Program Evaluation? Effectiveness: Is your program achieving the goals and objectives it was intended to accomplish?
Attribution: Can progress on goals and objectives be shown to be related to your program, as opposed to other things that are going on at the same time? Performance Measurement.
Surveillance and Program Evaluation. Research and Program Evaluation. Distinguishing Principles of Research and Evaluation. Research Principles. Program Evaluation Principles. Why Evaluate Public Health Programs?
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