University of North Texas Program Evaluation Proposal Paper

Program Evaluation Proposal

For the Program Evaluation Proposal, you are required to develop a proposal for how you would conduct an evaluation of a real program. This is just a proposal – you are NOT conducting the actual evaluation. 

BEFORE COMPLETING THIS ASSIGNMENT:

A literature review is a summary of previous research relevant to your evaluation. Your literature review should rely on peer reviewed journal articles found through Google Scholar and library databases. You should cite between 5 and 10 relevant research/evaluation studies for this section. The information included in your literature review will vary depending on the kind of evaluation you are proposing. For an outcome evaluation, your literature review will focus mostly on the impact of a program/model on clients. 

For this planning exercise, answer the following questions:

What data sources will you use to describe the problem your agency/program is trying to address in the statement of the problem section of your presentation? 

Have you identified at least 5-10 peer reviewed journal articles that you will be able to cite in the literature review section of your presentation? This is the section where you talk about what past research and evaluation studies can tell us about the type of program you are evaluating.

• Identify two(2) journal articles (list their full APA citations) and briefly describe how that article’s findings relate to your evaluation topic. In other words, what value does each article offer your literature review?

At this point, how are you feeling about your ability to develop the literature review section of your presentation? What do you feel good about? What are you worried about?

Part 3:

1. Review the information on sampling and data collection methods, as is appropriate to your plan: qualitative and mixed methods, sampling, measurement tools and strategies, and selecting the best evaluation measure.
2. Finalize the research question(s) for your proposal.
3. Brainstorm the kinds of data you would need to answer your research question(s).
4. For this exercise, answer the following questions:

What program will you be using for your proposal and what service(s) does it provide?

Describe your evaluation plan. This should include the kind of outcome evaluation you plan to propose and the research question(s) you want to answer with your proposed evaluation.

• To best answer your question, will you need quantitative or qualitative data? Or both? Why?
• What primary data source(s) you will use for your evaluation and what kind of data will it contain? For example, your primary source might be surveys of clients at intake. For this, really think about the data you need to answer your research question. Do not simply list all the possible data sources you can think of. Some questions will require interviewing staff, others will require surveying clients over time, others will make use of program records, etc. Remember, evaluations typically involve collecting new data, so do not feel restricted to using existing data sources.