How Will We Evaluate?
Saunders, et al. (2016) describes complete and acceptable delivery as essentially a deliverable program that has all of the components, theory, and logic model elements included. The recommended elements include: fidelity, which is also known as quality; dose delivered and received, which are the amount of program that is implemented by planners and received by participants; and reach, which is if the program was disseminated enough through the desired population (Saunders, et al., 2016). Therefore, in my definition of complete and acceptable delivery, I would base my judgement on how accurate and relevant the information to be delivered in the program is, how much information is given to the audience or participants, how well they receive it and how much they are able to comprehend, and finally if my program reached the goal amount or general audience it was intended to reach. All of these elements work together along with the theory and logic model that must be developed prior to beginning an education program in order for it to be successful. In order for my program to be implemented, there will be an online course curriculum that is relatively easy to follow and self-explanatory. This curriculum will be flexible in design in order to be implemented in different areas of the country and will be evaluated by post-course surveys given to both the participants and the instructors. There will be tutorials on how to conduct cooking demonstrations and several examples of healthy and micronutrient dense recipes along with other ideas for the instructor to be able to have some creative freedom to come up with other recipes to demonstrate. The creative freedom in recipe selection is designed to fit the area the program is being delivered in. In order to identify with and reach the participants fully, the recipes need to be relative to the normal cuisine of the area and have the ability to utilize what is fresh and most prevalent. Finally there will be a compilation of group activities that are relevant to the program and will be engaging the participants and reiterating what was learned in the online classes. These activities reinforce the lessons learned and will be evaluated by post-course interviews. These elements being in place will ensure the elements of fidelity, dose delivered and received and reach which make up a proper complete and acceptable delivery.
Target of Question | Process- Evaluation Question | Method of Assessment for Question | Resources Required |
Activities | Did the participants enjoy the activities presented in Feeding Me to Feed You?
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Focus group with specific open-ended questions regarding activities | Physical space for meeting or online Zoom call resources for focus group forum, question list |
Reach | Was the Feeding Me to Feed You program delivered to women in their late 20s and 30s who are attempting to get pregnant or are currently pregnant?
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Sign-in sheet with self-reporting of age and pregnancy status | Printed sign-in sheet with adequate instructions and space for responses |
Fidelity | Was the program curriculum for Feeding Me to Feed You implemented as planned?
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Self-reported checklist and observation by educator | Specifically designed and printed checklist to be available to educator as well as space for observation notes |
Context | Did the educators believe the program components were relevant and important to include?
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Open-ended survey given to educators after the program | Specifically developed survey to be virtually sent to educators upon completion of program |
Program Management | Did the educators completely explain and detail all of the components of the program as planned?
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Self-reported checklist | Printed checklist to evaluate details and components of program |
Dose Delivered | Did the educators personalize the program elements to fit their audience?
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Focus group with specific open-ended questions to educators | Physical space or online Zoom call ability to conduct focus group with specifically developed questions |
Dose Received | Did the audience find the material relevant and helpful? | Survey with both closed and open-ended questions for evaluation of material | Specifically developed survey with open ended questions and ordinal scale questions |
In Summary:
Looking at all of the potential questions for the process evaluation of Feeding Me to Feed You, the questions that will be focused on are those that revolve around the fidelity of the program, dose delivered, dose received, and finally the reach of the program. The fidelity is an important focus as it will evaluate the overall quality; dose delivered will look at the completeness of the implementation; dose received will look at how much exposure the participants actually received in the program; reach will look at how much of the intended audience was included in the program (Saunders, Evans, & Joshi, 2016).
The question that will be used for fidelity will be: Were the program elements implemented as planned? This question is designed to look at the overall program and have the educator who implemented the program look through a preset checklist to rate the quality of the design and the elements that are included. The second question that will be evaluated is: Did the educators personalize the program to fit their audience? This question is designed to ensure that the program design is tailored to the audience that attends in order to ensure relevancy to their specific region and lifestyle type. The educators will be requested to join a focus group with open-ended questions being asked of them in order to evaluate this question. In order to evaluate the other side, how much knowledge the participants received (dose received) the question of: Did the audience find the material relevant and helpful? will be used. This question is designed to request input from the audience to look at how much they got out of the program. A survey that is predeveloped with both open-ended and ordinal scale questions will be used to gather the data. The final question that will be used to look at the reach of the program is: Was the program delivered to women in their late 20s and 30s who are pregnant or looking to become pregnant? This question will use data from a sign in sheet that will be monitored as women are joining the program to see the age range and pregnancy status of the participants. This will be not only analyzed by checklist but also by personal observation by the educator.
References:
Saunders, R.P., Evans, M. H., & Joshi, P. (2005). Developing a Process-Evaluation Plan for Assessing Health Promotion Program Implementation: A How-To Guide. Health Promotion Practice.6: 134.