Program Evaluation Core Principles and Practical Applications
Description: Evaluation, it its most essential form, seeks to demonstrate the value of a program using rigorous scientific methods. In a more practical sense, it asks: what are the differences between the intentions of this program and its reality, and what accounts for those differences? While many in health and social sciences have a basic understanding of evaluation, many find themselves with a desire or directive to evaluate a program, but lack the practical, applied, field-based skills to do so confidently.
This novel skills-based workshop offers two levels of instruction and exploration, delivered across two workshop days, one week apart.
The first workshop serves as an introduction to (or refresher of) core evaluation components, and guides students through the conceptualization of a useful, feasible evaluation plan. Participants are invited to bring a real program to the course or to use a
sample program, and will explore through exercises, small group discussion, and one-on-one consultation with instructors how to build an evaluation that meets their needs within the realities of the time frame and resources available to them.
The second workshop serves as an intensive lab, diving into fieldwork and deepening learners’ understanding of how core evaluation concepts play out in real world scenarios. Learners will collaborate with one another under the seasoned and savvy guidance of Janet
Myers.
Participants will have access to both synchronous and asynchronous course materials to accommodate learners in multiple time zones and allow participants to customize the level of depth and detail with which they engage some topic areas.
Learners will come away from this pair of workshops with essential field-tested skills in successfully designing, conducting, and reporting findings of a program evaluation, as well as confidence in their ability to anticipate and navigate constraints and changing conditions along the way. Participants will learn how to craft evaluation questions that will guide and define the scope of their inquiry. At the end of the workshop, each learner will earn a certificate of completion, and retain a course handbook filled with course content, worksheets and exercises for future use, and the wisdom of their own notes and observations.
Please note that enrollment will default to both workshop days, but learners may choose to enroll for just one. Those who would like to attend just the second (advanced) workshop will be contacted directly by course faculty for consultation.
Learning objectives:
- Contextualize program evaluation within the broader world of health research,
- interventions, innovative approaches to human wellness, and the funding
- landscape.
- Develop and refine key practical skills related to designing an evaluation plan, such
- as describing and modeling a program, profiling yourself and your positionality,
- identifying and engaging stakeholders, crafting evaluation questions, selecting
- evaluation methods, realistic time mapping of data collection and analysis, and
- dissemination of findings.
- Apply evaluation concepts to real-world programs and scenarios, including
- assessing and responding to potential challenges in the field.
- Evaluation management: organize multiple evaluation components as a visual
- matrix, and complete a full-scope outline of an evaluation plan developed for a real
- or sample program or intervention.
Who’s the Audience?
- Public health practitioners / program staff / PIs / clinicians in health services and
- public health settings
- Those new to program evaluation who need/want to evaluate a program
- Those with a conceptual/Implementation Science-based understanding of program
- evaluation, but who seek practical, applied skills to go into the field
- Experienced evaluators seeking a refresher of building-blocks and filling in pockets
- of under-developed skills
What’s the format?
- Online
- Lectures, exercises, group discussion, group/pairs work, instructor consultation
- Two paths students can take, should choose prior to workshop:
- bring your own project and build an outline for an evaluation plan; or
- consult with course faculty to create a hypothetical scenario that would call for program evaluation.