LRN0209 - Evaluation Research
Course Description
Road test evaluation research for your organization. You won’t be disappointed. Evaluation research can give you and your organization a systematic assessment of the value of resources and time you commit to a project, product, or specific goal. Evaluation research can determine whether or not a process has achieved a goal or yielded the desired results.
Get introduced to the characteristics of evaluation research and how it can be directly applied to assess the impact or effectiveness of a program, policy, or procedure you want to road test in a professional setting.
Course Outline
Unit 1
Setting the Stage for Evaluations
- What is evaluation?
- Why do we do it?
- Needs assessment: first step in evaluation planning
- Share your scenario for something you might evaluate in your professional setting
Unit 2
Practical Issues in Planning and Implementing Evaluations – Part 1
- Individual readiness issues
- Organizational readiness issues
- Self-assessing your own readiness as an evaluator
- Identify key stakeholders: users of evaluation results
- Students share readiness issues (individual, organizational, and self) in related discussion forum
Unit 3
Practical Issues in Planning and Implementing Evaluations – Part 2
- What is a ‘situation analysis’ and how to conduct one
- Focusing your evaluation goals and how you will measure them
- Drafting your plan
- “Dress rehearsal” meeting with key stakeholders to set their expectations
- Students share drafts of their individual situation analysis
Unit 4
Practical Issues in Planning and Implementing Evaluations – Part 3
- Implementing the plan
- Managing time and cost factors
- Keeping lines of communication open with key stakeholders during evaluation
- How to prepare the final evaluation report
- Post-evaluation follow-ups with key stakeholders (what have they learned? Are they using the results?)
- Students share drafts of their individual evaluation plans
Learner Outcomes
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Describe the unique features of evaluation research and how it differs from other forms of research.
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Identify a current problem in your professional setting.
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Understand how to identify and select potential programs, policies, or procedures that could be applied to improve the above-identified problem.
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Understand situation analysis and why it’s important to successful evaluation research studies.
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Understand the distinction between formative (in progress) and summative (after completion of implementation) evaluation of the selected program, policy, or procedure being implemented.
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Develop an evaluation research plan to assess the selected program, policy, or procedure both formatively and summatively.
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Understand how to encourage practical application of the evaluation research results.
Notes
Course Objectives
To introduce learners to the nature of evaluation research;
To show how you can identify a problem in your professional setting that could benefit from applying a program, policy or procedure to improve it;
To demonstrate how you can conduct a needs assessment to determine the best program, policy, or procedure to the above-identified problem;
To outline how you can identify your desired target outcomes of an evaluation research study;
To explain how you can develop an evaluation research plan to accomplish the above objectives.