Program evaluation
From Wilderdom
- Program evaluation in outdoor education, adventure education, & other experiential intervention programs
Starting points
- Why program evaluation? - it has become increasingly important for outdoor and experiential education organizations to demonstrate clear evidence of effectiveness...
- Common practices in program evaluation
- Tools, instruments, & questionnaires - a list and details of instruments recommended for use in outdoor and experiential education program evaluations
- Needs assessment for program evaluations (.doc) - to get underway, if you complete this, it will help to focus and plan your program evaluation efforts
- Why use effect sizes instead of significance testing for program evaluation? - Effect sizes are underutilised in program evaluation; significance testing is overutiliszed
- Example evaluations - downloadable examples of outdoor education program evaluation reports by James Neill
Recommended resources
- Basic guide to program evaluation - an extensive knowledge base of program evaluation resources (McNamara, 1999)]
- Course evaluation methods - evaluative questions & tasks for participants near the end of a residential course (more qualitative; Greenaway)
- ERIC Clearinghouse for assessment, evaluation, & research information.
- The Evaluation Center
- Online Evaluation Resource Library
References
Gass, M., & Neill, J. T. (2001). Introduction to program evaluation. Presentation to the 29th Annual International Conference of the Association for Experiential Education, 2 November.
Greenaway, R. Evaluation of training/learning books & reviews. Active Reviewing.
Hendricks, B. (no date). Improving evaluation in experiential education. ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools.
Neill, J. T. (2010). Program evaluation and outdoor education: An overview. Presentation to the 16th National Outdoor Education Conference, Notre Dame University, Fremantle, Western Australia, January 10-13.
Priest, S. (2001). A program evaluation primer. Journal of Experiential Education, 24(1), 34-40.
Watters, R. (1988). Benefit cost analysis of non-commercial outdoor programs. In Proceedings of the 1986 Conference on Outdoor Recreation.
Watters, R. (1991). Cost benefit analysis of recreation programs for the disabled. Idaho State University Outdoor Program, Pocatello, ID.
