Program Evaluation and Its Usefulness Essay Example

Program Evaluation and Its Usefulness Essay Program evaluation is a tool used for evaluating and assessing a program in place. This paper will describe program evaluation and how it can be useful for an organization wishing to determine the efficiency, effectiveness, and the impact of a program. Five of the most common program evaluation models will be introduced. A number of different models are used by those who evaluate programs. This paper will describe, in detail, the success case method for evaluations. Program Evaluation and Its Usefulness Program evaluation is a process of assessing whether a program is efficient, effective, and has an impact on its intended users (Posavac and Carey, 2007). Program evaluation occurs in an organized setting and is a collection of methods, skills, and sensitivities used to determine whether a need is met and whether or not the objectives or goals of the program are sufficiently delivered and achieved. Evaluation looks at program and project objectives and asks whether they have been achieved, judges the worth of ongoing programs, decides upon the usefulness of new program or projects, and so forth† (Boulmetis and Dutwin, 2005, p. 3). Another way to look at program evaluation is to assess the current state of a program and identify any discrepancies of the current state and what the intended state is supposed to be. Program evaluations can be useful to an organization in several ways. We will write a custom essay sample on Program Evaluation and Its Usefulness specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Program Evaluation and Its Usefulness specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Program Evaluation and Its Usefulness specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Program evaluations can contribute to quality services by providing feedback. Formative evaluations, which are designed to help form the programs themselves, provide feedback that can be crucial to the success of an organization (Posavac and Carey, 2007). Also, evaluations can help an organization decide whether a program should be started or not and choose between different program options (Posavac and Carey, 2007). Through data collection, evaluation questions, and data analysis an organization can decide on the effective of a new or ongoing program. Program evaluations can verify that resources would be devoted to meeting unmet needs, verify that implemented programs do provide services, examine the outcome of programs, provide information to maintain and improve quality, and watch for unplanned side effects. Five Most Common Types of Program Evaluation Models The five most common types of program evaluations are ones that assess the program’s efficiency, assess the program’s design and theory, assess the program’s impact on the community or end user, assess the program’s process or implementation, and assess the need for the program. Success Case Model for Evaluation According to Brinkerhoff (1983), success case evaluation seeks qualitative information about a few subjects rather than seeking thinner, quantifiable data about many subjects. The success case model derives information from those participants who have benefited from the program according to the goals and objectives the program intends to have. This feedback may be helpful to others who have not benefitted as well from the program. Success cases may be studies briefly through short interviews with a few trainees or through more elaborate approaches, such as work-sample analysis, records analysis and observation† (Brinkerhoff, 1983, para. 9). Some uses of the success case method are illustrating that the program has a positive impact, modifying and strengthening the program being evaluated, and building data collection methods to determine the extent of the program’s impact (Brinkerhoff, 1983). Evaluation questions often associated with th e success case model ask: How has the program been used? What benefits are results of the program? What problems occurred during or because of the program? Conclusion Program evaluation is necessary to accurately examine a program’s efficiency, effectiveness, or impact of the particular program through the means evaluation questions, data collection, and data analysis. These types of evaluations can provide useful feedback to organizations to examine the outcomes of a program, verify that the goals and objectives of a program are met, provide information to choose between different programs, provide information to improve quality of a program, and watch for unplanned side effects. The five most common evaluation models address the need for a program, the efficiency of a program, the impact of a program, the theory of a program, and the implementation of a program. The success case model of evaluation seeks information on a select group of participants who have experienced success from the program. Feedback from the program can help to modify or strengthen the program, help others who have yet to benefit from the program, and determine the impact of the program on its participants. References Brinkerhoff, R. O. (August 1983). The success case: a low-cost, high-yield evaluation. Training and Development Journal. Retrieved December 6, 2010, from www. ebscohost. com. Boulmetis, J. amp; Dutwin, P. (2005). The ABCs of evaluation: Timeless techniques for program and project managers. (2nd ed. ). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/John Wiley amp; Sons. Posavac, E. , amp; Carey, R. (2007). Program evaluation: Methods and case studies. (7th ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Data Sources For Sociological Research

Data Sources For Sociological Research In conducting research, sociologists draw upon data from a variety of sources on different subjects: economy, finance, demography, health, education, crime, culture, environment, agriculture, etc. This data is gathered and made available by governments, social science scholars, and students from various disciplines. When the data are available electronically for analysis, they are typically called data sets. Many sociological research studies do not require the gathering of original data for analysis, especially since there are so many agencies and researchers gathering, publishing, or otherwise distributing data all the time. Sociologists may explore, analyze, and illuminate this data in new ways for different purposes. Below are a few of the many options for accessing data, depending on the topic you are studying. U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census and serves as a leading source of data about Americas people and economy. It also gathers other national and economic data, many of which are available online. The U.S. Census Bureau website includes data from the Economic Census, the American Community Survey, the 1990 Census, the 2000 Census, and current population estimates. Also available are interactive internet tools that include mapping tools and data at the national, state, county, and city level. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics The Bureau Of Labor Statistics is a branch of the United States Department of Labor and is the government agency that is responsible for collecting data about employment, unemployment, pay and benefits, consumer spending, work productivity, workplace injuries, employment projections, international labor comparisons, and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Data can be accessed online in a variety of formats. The National Center for Health Statistics The National Center For Health Statistics (NCHS) is a part of the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) and is responsible for collecting data from birth and death records, medical records, interview surveys, and through direct physical exams and laboratory testing in order to provide important surveillance information that helps identify and address critical health problems in the United States. Data available on the website include Healthy People 2010 data, Injury data, National Death Index data, and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. TheDataWeb Data Web: Data Ferrett is a network of online data libraries based on datasets provided by several U.S. government agencies including the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Center for Disease Control. Data topics include census data, economic data, health data, income, and unemployment data, population data, labor data, cancer data, crime and transportation data, family dynamics, and vital statistics data. Users need to download the DataFerret application (available from that site) in order to access and use the datasets. The National Survey of Families and Households National Survey Of Families And Households (NSFH) was designed to provide a broad range of information on family life to serve as a resource for research across disciplinary perspectives. A considerable amount of life-history information was collected, including the respondents family living arrangements in childhood, departures and returns to the parental home, and histories of marriage, cohabitation, education, fertility, and employment. The design permits the detailed description of past and current living arrangements and other characteristics and experiences, as well as the analysis of the consequences of earlier patterns on current states, marital and parenting relationships, kin contact, and economic and psychological well-being. Interviews were conducted in 1987-88, 1992-94, and 2001-2003. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) is a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in grades 7 to 12 in the United States during the 1994/1995 school year. The Add Health cohort has been followed into young adulthood with four in-home interviews, the most recent in 2008 when the sample was aged 24 to 32. Add Health combines longitudinal survey data on respondents social, economic, psychological and physical well-being with contextual data on the family, neighborhood, community, school, friendships, peer groups, and romantic relationships, providing unique opportunities to study how social environments and behaviors in adolescence are linked to health and achievement outcomes in young adulthood. The fourth wave of interviews expanded the collection of biological data in Add Health to understand the social, behavioral, and biological linkages in health trajectories as the Add Health cohort ages through adulthood. Sources Carolina Population Center. (2011). Add Health. cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealthCenter for Demography, University of Wisconsin. (2008). National Survey of Families and Households. ssc.wisc.edu/nsfh/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011). cdc.gov/nchs/about.htm