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Best-Practices: Program Evaluation
Overview
All content on this page is from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC), Demonstrating Your Program’s Worth—A Primer on Evaluation for Programs to Prevent Unintentional Injury.
“Evaluation is the process of determining whether programs—or certain aspects of programs—are appropriate, adequate, effective, and efficient and, if not, how to make them so. In addition, evaluation shows if programs have unexpected benefits or create unexpected problems.”
Demonstrating Your Program’s Worth—A Primer On Evaluation For Programs To Prevent Unintentional Injury.
Four Types of Evaluation
Evaluation has four stages that are begun in this order: formative, process, impact, and outcome. Planning for each stage begins while an injury prevention program is being developed, and no stage is truly complete until the program is over. Below is a brief description of each stage.
- Formative Evaluation
Formative evaluation is the process of testing program plans, messages, materials, strategies, or modifications for weaknesses and strengths before they are put into effect. Formative evaluation is also used when an unanticipated problem occurs after the program is in effect.
- Process Evaluation
Process evaluation is the mechanism for testing whether the program’s procedures for reaching the target population are working as planned.
- Impact Evaluation
Impact evaluation is the process of assessing the program’s progress toward its goals (i.e., measuring the immediate changes brought about by the program in the target population).
- Outcome Evaluation
Outcome evaluation is the process of measuring whether your program met its ultimate goal of reducing morbidity and mortality due to injury.
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Formative Evaluation
Formative evaluation is the process of testing program plans, messages, materials, strategies, or modifications for weaknesses and strengths before they are put into effect. Formative evaluation is also used when an unanticipated problem occurs after the program is in effect.
When to use:
- During the development of a new program
- When an existing program
- is being modified,
- has problems with no obvious solutions, or
- is being used in a new setting, with a new population, or to target a new problem or behavior
What it shows:
- Whether proposed messages are likely to reach, to be understood by, and to be accepted by the people you are trying to serve (e.g., shows strengths
and weaknesses of proposed written materials)
- How people in the target population get information (e.g., which newspapers they read or radio stations they listen to)
- Whom the target population respects as a spokesperson (e.g., a sports celebrity or the local preacher)
- Details that program developers may have overlooked about materials, strategies, or mechanisms for distributing information (e.g., that the target
population has difficulty reaching the location where training classes are held)
Why it is useful:
- Allows programs to make revisions before the full effort begins
- Maximizes the likelihood that the program will succeed
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Process Evaluation
Process evaluation is the mechanism for testing whether the program’s procedures for reaching the target population are working as planned.
When to use:
- As soon as the program begins operation
What it shows:
- How well a program is working (e.g., how many people are participating in the program and how many people are not)
Why it is useful:
- Identifies early any problems that occur in reaching the target population
- Allows programs to evaluate how well their plans, procedures, activities, and materials are working and to make adjustments before logistical or administrative weaknesses become entrenched
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Impact Evaluation
Impact evaluation is the process of assessing the program’s progress toward its goals (i.e., measuring the immediate changes brought about by the program in the target population).
When to use:
- After the program has made contact with at least one person or one group of people in the target population
What it shows:
- The degree to which a program is meeting its intermediate goals (e.g., how awareness about the value of bicycle helmets has changed among program participants)
- Changes in the target population’s knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs
Why it is useful:
- Allows management to modify materials or move resources from a nonproductive to a productive area of the program
- Tells programs whether they are moving toward achieving these goals
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Outcome Evaluation
Outcome evaluation is the process of measuring whether your program met its ultimate goal of reducing morbidity and mortality due to injury.
When to use:
- For ongoing programs (e.g., safety classes offered each year): at appropriate intervals
- For one-time programs (e.g., a 6-month program to distribute car seats): when program is complete
What it shows:
- The degree to which the program has met its ultimate goals (e.g., how much a smoke detector program has reduced injury and death due to house fires)
Why it is useful:
- Allows programs to learn from their successes and failures and to incorporate what they have learned into their next project
- Provides evidence of success for use in future requests for funding
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