Research and Evaluation: The Basics A Workshop for Educators Session 519 Saturday, June 30, 2007 Rita DeMaria, Ph.D. Scott Gardner, Ph.D

Research  Careful, thorough, patient, systematic investigation undertaken to establish facts or principles in field of study  Use of the scientific method  quantitative: statistics  qualitative: interviews

Evaluation  Is my program accomplishing the goals and objectives?  How do participants view and experience the service?

What’s good and what’s bad research? DDDDon’t do anything TTTTouchy Feely SSSSample problems (biased) NNNNo Control TTTToo Broad (change the world) BBBBad Measures RRRRandom Assignment

Something is Much Better than Nothing!

Ways of Collecting Data  Insider vs. Outsider  Questionnaires  Self-Anchored Rating Scales (Likert)  Interviews  Behavioral Observations (self and others, ratings)  Example of Husband TV Habits  Timed Daily logs  “Hard” measures

Use Multiple Methods & Levels  Individual  Sibling Dyad  Couple Dyad  Parent-Child Dyad  Family  Community  Etc.

What is reliability and validity?

The benefit of using reliable and valid established measures

Examples From our Research  From Scott’s research  From Rita’s research: Comparison of Marriage Education Program Participants

Scales You Can Use  Dyadic Adjustment Scale  Marital Status Inventory  Conflict Tactics Scale

Resources for finding measurement scales

Overview of different research designs  Basics of pretest – posttest  Observation, interview, surveys

Other issues  Informed consent  Protection of human subjects

Statistics  Generalizability  What is statistical significance?

Some statistical programs  SPSS  Excel

Stat Help 101

Dissemination

What’s Your Plan?  Small Groups  My program  My population  My plan  Pre, Post, follow-up  Getting the word out

free consultation and support  Please contact either of us for help or questions:  Rita DeMaria, Ph.D.    Scott Gardner, Ph.D.  