Discuss the importance of process evaluations in development programs.
Introduction
Development Programmes are projects that are meant to address significant developmental challenges and opportunities arising from global trends, emergent policy issues, capacity limitations and problems in the communities. The aim being to enhance livelihoods and poverty reduction in some of the poorest communities. Knowledge, skills and experience are applied to bring about improvements in food security, sustainable agricultural productivity and natural resource management, market access and income generation, in a bid to improve livelihoods. 1
Evaluation refers to a periodic process of gathering data and then analyzing or ordering it in such a way that
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The importance of process evaluation
The process or implementation evaluation, when being done, has to have output data collected on a regular basis. This is done to monitor and describe how programme activities are being implemented. It gives an insight on whether the services that were funded were able to be provided. This provides early feedback as to whether program implementation proceeded as intended. Barriers encountered and possible changes to the original service delivery model will be encountered. Thus process evaluation helps to answer questions about why a program’s intended outcomes were achieved or not achieved. 2
Without a rigorous and systematic process evaluation, it becomes difficult to identify specific problems that occurred during project implementation that may have influenced
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It concentrates in two areas; process and coverage, measuring what is done by the programme. It is through process evaluation that the programme planners can see if the service or network of services served the intended clients, eg in a health programme revisit the beneficiary demographic and clinical characteristics. The proportion of those who completed treatment and the characteristics of defaulters. The actual process or activities carried out eg how long has the clients waited and how were they managed. The programme should be assessed whether it serve clients it was intended to serve, the contact period each client received and what percentage of the clients completed the programme. The evaluation will give a clear picture as to whether there was a positive change or impact, which enable programme planners and implementers to improve and maintain the good work. Most importantly, the programme should have clear objectives from which monitoring should base.
Monitoring and evaluation are integral parts of management and provide a link between planning and implementation. While monitoring focuses on the activities and outputs, evaluation focuses on the outcome and goals. Monitoring focuses on inputs and outputs and is the continuous process of gathering information to measure against the goals and objectives. Evaluation, like monitoring, is a continuous process. Evaluation provides feedback on whether plans have been met and the reasons for success or failure. Evaluation should highlight shortcomings so they can be identified and corrected. It should provide direction for future plans. It is important to monitor and assess the on-going performance of teams and individuals, in order to evaluate the progress towards agreed objectives. Monitoring mostly involves keeping track of what is going on. By undertaking this regularly, we have the opportunity to make changes and adjustments, to ensure that any areas of concern are addressed.
Processes for this phase will include, implementing improvements that were identified in the check phase
program is successful and identify any changes in policy and program that needs to be
Analysis consists of compiling data that consists of who is going to use the system, what data will be needed to be put into the system, what data will be needed out of the system, and what it needs to do for the institution. In my hospital at this step, our Information Technology (IT) department and some middle management were involved along with NI. Nursing should be more involved here since they are going to be the primary users....
It is a step of defining the goals of the projects and the results are aimed at reaching certain levels of productivity of customer satisfaction. The second stage is measure, and it is the stage of collecting data and facts and evaluating current operational performance. The third stage is analyze with the purpose of developing methods and theories that will best suit the solving of the problem; it is also a stage of detecting cause-and-effect ties of the processes. The fourth stage is improve, it is aimed at generating ideas for reaching the desired process improvement. Finally, there is the control stage that is about monitoring the operations to find out whether the process of improvement is smooth and the problems were solved (Meredith & Shafer,
b) program evaluation an can look at all characteristics of a program - activities, target groups, and outcomes.
Assist with the development of monitoring plans for short, mid, and long-term outcomes of the strategies outlined in the Strategic Plan and in the evaluation of the program’s developed for effectiveness and efficiency.
... weaknesses of the program and its effectiveness. The evaluation process should include: identifying clear goals of the program and developing a survey for each goal. These surveys can be executed at the first session of the program and again once it has ended. Comparing the pre-test and post-test info shall provide valuable info about changes in attitudes and behaviors.
Ensure that effective measurements and monitoring mechanisms are in place to determine whether implemented solutions have yielded predicted benefits and to drive continuous process improvement.
The criteria used to gauge this success are if 85% of the youth are experiencing a significant decrease in disciplinary action by the school in 6 months after the program completion. Finally the program will use the M.E.A.S.U.R.E technique. MEASURE is an acronym standing for Mission, Elements, Analyze, Stakeholders, Unite, Reanalyze, and Educate the helps the school social worker to connect to the mission of the school and the program. Mission is the school rules and how they believe it should be followed by the students. Elements are part of the school report cards; analyze those critical data elements to see where the program can positively impact them. Identify internal and external stakeholders who can collaborate to impact the data; Unite with these stakeholders to form partnerships and form strategies; and Reanalyze to determine which strategies worked, be redesigned, or discarded. “Finally, the social worker and the school present their successes and educate a wide audience as to how the program contributed to moving critical data elements” (Bowers,
Furthermore program evaluations also focus on program delivery, functions, inputs and outputs of a program.
“A process evaluation is an assessment, generally by group members, as to aspects of the group that were useful or detrimental. Feedback about techniques and incidents that blocked or enhanced progress is of immense value to the group leader. With this information, the leader can hone certain skills, eliminate some materials, and give direction for approaches and materials to add. Feedback can add confidence or be critical and if the feedback is highly critical, it can be humbling or devastating. It is far better to make changes suggested by the evaluation than to reject and deny the feedback and repeat the same mistakes in future groups and leaders should welcome criticism and respond constructively” (Zastrow, 2015, p.507-509).
...e, and assists in identifying gaps in services, thereby making it an impetrative part of the planning process. The SWOT analysis assists in the needs assessment process by identifying gaps in services. Thereby allow administrators to fulfill that need though the needs assessment process.
Indicators that will aid in measuring the success and progression of the program will include both performance and visual indicators and evaluation form.