Question

A research team conducts a trauma-informed program to assist victims of crime.  Participants (n=100) take part in a 6-week course on self-care techniques. The ultimate aim of the program is to reduce negative consequences associated with victimization.  Using an experimental design, the team’s impact evaluationdemonstrates that the program improves participants’ general wellbeing and they are producing a report detailing these findings.  

a. Briefly describe a process evaluation methodology could be conducted here. Don’t need a full methodological plan, just a description of a process evaluation to show you understand how they work.

b. What is the purpose of process evaluation or implementation studies? What do they contribute to impact evaluations within a general program evaluation framework?  

Answer 1

This is a descriptive problem which relates to discussing the process of evaluation for the impact of a programme on victims of crime.We have a sample of 100 participants who take part in it.

We need to assess the results of the scores obtained post programme with our beliefs.

Before explaining the evaluation process ,let me spend some time over explaining the case and how to proceed forward.

We have a sample of 100 people who have been victims of crime. They undergo a rehabilitation programme of 6 weeks to get into a proper frame of mind.

Now we as researchers need to know if the programme has been helpful in rehabilitation and reduce on the impact of victimization?

For this let us choose a parameter of measure.

For the given programme we can take the element of trust factor as a parameter and we can measure it by number of times a person who is a part of the test goes out of his/her home alone in one month post the programme keeping all other factors as same.

Let us assume that on an average a person goes outside his/her home alone 30 times in a month with a standard deviation of 2 .

Our observation found that on an average a person goes out 25 times per month from the sample of 100 people taken in study.

Now let us focus on the approach.

Thus we conclude from the process of evaluation that there is NO significant difference between the normal outdoor visits of any random person and that of any person who was a victim of crime and who was subjected to rehabilitation training.

This gives us a significant belief that the training programme has been successful in improving the confidence of the victims.

Purpose of process evaluation/implementation studies

We need to firstly understand as to what comprises a process evaluation .

The Process evaluations help stakeholders see how a program outcome or impact was achieved and it allows the organisation in question to look at

1. how it develops itself,

2. its structures,

3. its supporting programs like communications and marketing, and

4. for channelizing resources for fund development.

In other words, process evaluation documents the process of a program's implementation. It help the stakeholders to see as to how a program outcome or impact was achieved.

Process evaluation focuses on the types and quantities of services delivered, the beneficiaries of those services, the resources used to deliver the services, the practical problems encountered, and the ways such problems were resolved.

process evaluation can also look at the processes of program, management, and infrastructure together to judge the capacity of an organization to deliver on its promised outcomes.

Information from process evaluations is useful for understanding how program impact and outcome were achieved and for program replication. Looking at outcomes without analyzing how they were achieved fails to account for the human capital (over-worked staff) involved in getting to good outcomes and the true costs of the program.