Module 5 - Evaluation
Overview | Quality | Eval Questions | Instruments | R & E | Proposal Steps | Resources
Evaluation Questions and Design
Building evaluation questions from logic model
You have now reviewed your logic model three times: in Module 1 you designed a draft logic model to better understand your idea; in Module 3 you revised the logic model to include key elements from your Project Description; and in Module 4 you designed your research questions to answer questions about whether your proposed project will have the impact on the desired outcomes. Now in Module 5 we return to the logic model and focus on the aspects of the model that relate to your evaluation.
The goal of your evaluation, as described in the previous tab, is to answer two questions from the ITEST solicitation:
- Is the project making sufficient progress toward meeting the goals and objectives?
- What are the intellectual merits and broader impacts of the project with respect to its intended outcomes?
Let’s think about answering these questions in terms of the different components of the logic model.
Activities
The activity stage of the logic model describes what the project will do with participants. Some evaluation questions for this stage include: Are the activities being implemented as planned? Are changes or course corrections needed based on formative observations? These questions help to answer whether the project is making sufficient progress, and can offer suggestions for adjustments along the way.
Outputs
The outputs section describes what you expect to complete in your project, sometimes also called project monitoring. For example, you may plan to hold a two-week summer professional development experience for 25 teachers in each of two summers. The evaluation would monitor whether you met your output. In brief, did the activities result in expected outputs? As with the Activities section, these questions help to describe the project’s progress in meeting its goals.
Short-Term Outcomes
The outcomes stage of the logic model (sometimes divided into short, medium, and long-term) describes the changes you expect to see in participants. In many cases, the research questions (rather than the evaluation questions) will be focused on measuring the outcomes, though in some cases evaluators include a question that looks at impact. Did the project result in the expected change in participants? The evaluation may also be designed to provide feedback on the research process; are there issues with the research design that can be addressed via evaluative feedback?
Developing Your Evaluation Plan
There are multiple resources readily available to help design your evaluation plan. We provide here a link to informalscience.org, which has compiled extensive resources to review and use in your design.
Activity 5.02
Referring to your logic model, identify the evaluation questions that will best contribute to helping you to implement your project successfully. You may want to identify questions that address each stage in the logic model, or you may want to identify a set of questions that helps to monitor progress, develop and refine the intervention, and sum up the results.