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Why Evaluate?

Welcome to the Life Skills Evaluation website.  This website was adapted by Arkansas 4-H to assist 4-H Youth Development faculty and staff to evaluate their programs that teach life skills.

Why Participate In The Life Skills Evaluation?

Evaluation data are needed at the local and state level to provide information to funders and decision-makers about the impacts our programs have on youth and adult participants. This process will allow for both local and statewide data to be aggregated and used in a variety of reports.

What Can This Evaluation System Do For You?

This evaluation system was created to measure growth in specific life skills as a result of individuals' participation in a program. The information gathered will tell you 1) if the program was effective in meeting its life skill objective and 2) provide concrete evidence to stakeholders concerning program effects.

This is not a subject-matter assessment tool. It is not designed to measure growth in content (i.e., knowledge of nutritional information or computer technology). However, a section on content can be added by the evaluator (select Learning to Use the System).

Basics Of Program Evaluations

Program evaluation is the systematic collection of information to be used in assessing program components in order to make decisions about the program (Jacobs, 1988; Patton, 1997). There are two general types of evaluation:

1. Process evaluations focus on how well a program is working by looking at the process of delivering a program, such as the setup of the program and the activities used to teach the content. 
2. Outcome evaluations examine whether or not changes have occurred as a result of the program.

Results of program evaluations are used for one or more of the following purposes (Patton, 1997):

• Gathering data for program improvement.
• Determining the worthiness of a program (i.e., Did the participants gain knowledge or change behavior?).
• Obtaining general knowledge about a program.
  

Plans for the evaluation of a program should occur from the very start of a program, during the program planning stage (Jacobs, 1988). The evaluation then becomes integrated into the everyday activities of the program.

The purpose of the evaluation should be tied to the developmental stage of the program. Jacobs (1988) developed the Five-Tiered Approach to Evaluation, suggesting that evaluation of new programs focus on the process of accountability and improvement while the evaluation of established programs move toward a level of assessing outcomes or impact.

According to the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (1994), quality evaluations have four characteristics which need to be kept in mind when planning an evaluation. These characteristics are:

1. Utility - An evaluation needs to be useful for those involved in the program.
2. Propriety - Evaluation procedures need to be ethical toward participants and the least disruptive possible for the program.
3. Accuracy - Data gathered for the evaluation needs to be accurate.
4. Feasibility - The evaluation needs to be achievable with the resources available, especially time and money.

References

Jacobs, F. H. (1988). The five-tiered approach to evaluation: Context and implementation. In H. B. Weiss & F. H. Jacobs (Eds.), Evaluating Family Programs, New York: Aldine DeGruyter.

Patton, M. Q. (1997). Utilization-focused evaluation. (3rd Edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (1994). The program evaluation standards: How to assess evaluations of educational programs. (2nd Edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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