PROGRAM EVALUATION Amanda Valbuena Evaluator, CFEP

What is Program Evaluation?  What words come to mind when you think of Program Evaluation?  What does Evaluation mean?

Defining Program Evaluation  Evaluation is the systematic collection of information about the activities, characteristics and outcomes of the program to make judgments about the program, to improve program effectiveness and/or inform decisions about future programming.  Michael Quinn Patton

Steps of Program Evaluation  Step 1: State the goals and outcomes for your Program.  Remember that programs are different, and may be trying to achieve different things  What are the goals of your program?  What changes are you wanting to see in the students you work with?

Steps of Program Evaluation  Step 2: Determine which activities that you offer are intended to make these changes.  Example:  Which activities do you offer to students? Tutoring Increased Grades

Steps of Program Evaluation  Step 3: Collect data from participants to see if these changes happened.  Write survey questions that:  Answer what you want to know!  Are as simple as possible!  That participants will be able to answer!  Example: What is your current GPA?

Remember  To improve a program, the findings from an evaluation must be useful!  How?  The questions must be relevant to the program!  The questions must address the changes you are wanting to see in your participants!

Lets Try this!  What changes do you want to see in participants?  What activities do you provide to make those changes happen?  What do we want to know in order to see if these changes happened?