Our Previous Samples

Imagine that you were designing a curriculum evaluation to involve a conversation with a principal, a survey of 30 teachers, and one classroom observation. Discuss the data collection method you would employ. Include your rationale for your particular choice.

Discuss what differentiates nonexperimental, quasi-experimental, and experimental evaluation designs. What are the most significant differences? Which design do you consider to be the most rigorous and why?

Select two of the scenarios below. Write one evaluation question and include a rationale for each of the questions.

• Write an evaluation question for the following strategy: Provide conflict resolution training for teachers.
• Write an evaluation question for the following early objective: Increase the number of teachers trained in conflict resolution.
• Write an evaluation question for the following intermediate objective: Improve teacher knowledge of conflict resolution strategies.
• Write an evaluation question for the following long-term goal: Decrease the number of student conflicts.

Make sure you have a sound understanding of the four approaches to program evaluation: Outcome, process, impact, and summative.

Instructions

Recommend an evaluation approach that is appropriate for your chosen program. Make sure to include support for your arguments. Do the following in 3-4 pages:

• Justify an evaluation approach that is appropriate for the program.
• Justify three guiding questions intended to drive the evaluation plan, including why they are appropriate for the selected approach.
• Describe how three key stakeholders may plausibly be impacted by the evaluation approach.

Requirements

• 3-4 pages in length.
• One of your resources should be your textbook.
• Use at least three sources to support your writing. Choose sources that are credible, relevant, and appropriate. Cite each source listed on your source page at least one time within your assignment. For help with research, writing, and citations, access the library or review library guides.

• Revisit the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study (CSYS)  that was introduced in Chapter 2 of your text. Take notes of important points that will help you in addressing this week's discussion question.
  • The purpose of CSYS (Cabot, 1940) was both to prevent juvenile delinquency among boys as well as to study the effectiveness of juvenile delinquency interventions. It is revisited here to illustrate how ideology relates to design, role, and methods. While it is impossible to truly know what Cabot's ideology was with regard to evaluation, we can surmise from descriptions of the study where his beliefs might fall along each calibrator continuum.
  • With regard to the design calibrators, the design indicates he favored the medical model of research design, and it does not appear that findings were used for program improvement. With regard to role calibrators, the evaluators were external and do not appear to have had much involvement with the program beyond data collection. There is no evidence that CSYS was a capacity-building evaluation. With regard to methods calibrators, while some qualitative methods may have been used, the predominant methods appear to have been quantitative and focused on the objectives of the CSYS.

• Imagine that the CSYS evaluators had a different ideology. Consider each scenario below, select one, and identify ways that the change may have affected the findings from the study.
  1. Suppose the evaluators chose to forgo a control group and included all youth in the program.
  2. Suppose findings were used throughout the program to improve services for the children involved.
  3. Suppose the evaluator was someone internal to the program.
  4. Suppose the evaluators worked closely with stakeholders throughout the program, building processes for them to collect and analyze their own data.
  5. Suppose the youth were observed and data were collected from these observations, instead of from instruments designed to measure behavior.
  6. Suppose the evaluators did not use the stated objectives of the program to drive the study, but instead examined any potential outcome of the program.

Discuss two ways in which the Belmont Principles relate to evaluations.

Overview

In next week's assignment, you start the first of your four-part Program Evaluation Plan by describing and analyzing important aspects of your chosen program. This activity requires you to first choose a program and then describe it.

Preparation

Selecting the proper program to evaluate is a critical step in creating a successful evaluation plan. Select a K-12 program that you are interested in, would like to see evaluated, and most importantly, is accessible - that is, one that you are able to readily obtain information about that will allow you to complete all aspects of the project as described in the Course Project description. Failing to do this will likely make your work more difficult.

Possible programs include, but are not limited to:

• Student or teacher assessment.
• Pay for student achievement.
• New teacher or employee training.
• Online learning.
• Anti-bullying.
• Gender equity for girls in math and science.
• School-to-work, retention of at-risk students.
• Schools of choice (charter schools).

The following resources provide information on the types of program evaluations:  (if you need these links you should be able copy and paste them in a browser you may not need them but if you do and cant open them let me know 

• Types of Program Evaluations      Links to an external site..
• Types of Evaluation      Links to an external site..

Instructions

Identify your program (and provide a Web link to it if available) in a Word document, and briefly describe it, making sure to include the following:

• Program Type: Formative, summative, process, outcomes, and impact.
• Target Population: Grade, age, gender, ethnicity, and special needs.
• Mission and Philosophy.
• Program Leadership: Briefly list the major program stakeholders and their credentials.
• Program partners, if any