Question

Errors in the program evaluation process can occur at any stage and can potentially have disastrous effects on the acceptance or proper interpretation of the results. These errors encompass many areas including, but not limited to relationships, logic, scapegoating, and population masking.

For this discussion, respond to the following:

Analyze which errors have the most damaging impact on an evaluation.

Provide clear examples to support your perspective from your experiences, course materials, or your own research. Use APA formatting to cite your references.

Answer 1

The following types of errors have disastrous effects on an evaluation process:

1. Asking more than one question in a single question-The major consequence of asking more than one question in a single question is that it will not yield useful data for interpretation.

2. Collectiong more information than is useful to us- If we do not have any plans for using the collected data appropriately, we should not collect the data. It wastes our time, it wastes the time of the participants, and it wastes the time of those who will be doing data compilation.

3. Using words or methods inappropriate for the group we are working with -If we want to collect information from five year-olds, we should think of a way to get that information, rather than a complicated questionnaire. If we want to collect information from people with limited literacy skills or semi-literates, we should think of ways to gather that information that will respect their dignity.

4. Reducing the Biased Response from the Participants -The way we word the questions, or the setting where we collect the information can lead to biased responses. No data can be perfectly free of bias; however, there are ways to word questions to reduce the chance of leading questions.