Process evaluation is focused on the implementation of a program. There are three main components to a process evaluation and they are…
- Program description
- Program monitoring
- Quality assurance
We will now look at each of these individually.
Program Description
Program description is about documentation for replication. In other words, a program description is used to determine the operational steps of a program if someone else wants to implement the same program. The main challenge of program description is determining what data to find and use. Data can come from clients, staff, program activities, meetings, etc. All of this data has to be organized to explain what the program does and how it does it.
There are some generally recommended steps for this as outlined below.
- Determine what the program leaders are interested in knowing. This provides a working framework for shaping the data that is collected
- Develop a plan for collecting data
- Determine stakeholders to interview. These are the people who provide qualitative data about the program.
- Develop surveys based on step 3. The survey allows you to reach many stakeholders using quantitative means.
- Conduct the interviews and issue the surveys
- Examine any documents about the program
- Analyze all information
- Share results.
The steps above will allow you to determine what to collect and how to collect it to describe a program.
Program Monitoring
Program monitoring is used to determine what happens within a program and who it happens to. The focus on what happened and to who is to make sure that a program stays focused on its mission and does not wander away from it. Over time, there are changes to a program in terms of the staff, and resources are often reshuffled as other problems arise. This leads to a program losing focus and not staying committed to its original mission.
To prevent a loss of focus program monitoring involves determining what events and activities within a program should be counted. Below are some examples of events and activities that could be counted in many programs.
- Number of clients served
- Number of new clients served
- Number of counseling sessions provided.
As these metrics are gathered it can be determined if the program is staying focused. If these numbers begin to change it will be possible to question and explain why this is happening. For example, the number of clients served may drop due to people moving out of the area. This may lead to the program being shut down or to a change in the demographic of those who are being supported by the program.
Determining what to count can often be decided by looking at the mission, goals, and objectives of a program. The mission is the overarching purpose of a program. The goals are unmeasurable ideas of what the program wants to achieve. The objectives are measurable actions the program takes to achieve its goals.
Quality Assurance
Program monitoring is great for figuring out what is happening but it does not explain how well things are happening. For this reason, we need quality assurance. Quality assurance compares the metrics of the program to an external standard. By doing this, it is possible to determine how well the program is doing.
An example would be for a program that supports juvenile offenders the standard may be to make sure that repeat offenders of crime do not exceed 10% of the participants in the program. The 10% value is the standard. If the program stays below this value it would be considered a good program. However, if the program exceeds 10% of repeat offenders then it would be necessary to determine what types of support and adjustments are needed for the program to meet this standard.
These standards are often set by outside authorities such as accreditation agencies and or the government. Sometimes even the funders of the program will have standards. This is often the case when working with government funding.
Conclusion
Process evaluation is a key component of program evaluation. It allows a team to see the immediate actions of a program in terms of measurable metrics. This analysis can help to document a program, determine if it is on the right path, and assess the quality of the program.