Evaluation and Program Planning最新文献

Child abuse, particularly neglect, is often preventable because many causes of harm stem from poverty, lack of social connections, substance use disorders, mental illness, lack of childcare, and other family support shortages. Prevention of child abuse and neglect starts with family support in these areas. The federal government recognized this need for prevention, and through considerable bipartisan support, passed the Family First Prevention Services Act on February 9, 2018. The Family First Prevention Services Act was designed to divert investment away from long-term foster care and toward programs that prevent unnecessary placement and child protective services interventions. The Family First Prevention Services Act restricts the state’s use of federal funds for institutional foster care placements and uses those savings to fund reimbursements for evidence-based family preservation. The requirement for evidence-based prevention is a first in child-welfare federal law, and compliance with this requirement requires public-private partnership with agencies implementing the models, infrastructure, and evaluation standards that most states must build to be eligible for the new funding. This evaluation research analyzed how the stringent guidelines for prevention funding and the requirement of federally approved evidence-based practice programming affect the implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act in Nebraska and Colorado.

Adults in socially vulnerable positions can benefit from participation in community sports programs. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the effective elements of these programs. To identify these elements, we consulted three groups of stakeholders: social sports coaches, program coordinators, and social workers. The effective elements were systematically arranged by means of group concept mapping (GCM), a mixed-methods approach for organizing thoughts. The social sports coaches (n = 14) mentioned 152 effective elements, the program coordinators (n = 5) mentioned 81 effective elements and the social workers (n = 8) mentioned 115 effective elements. Overlapping effective elements were mentioned by all three stakeholder groups, such as the role of the social sports coach, a safe sports climate, and structure of sports programs. However, the sport-specific knowledge and skills of coaches were mentioned only by program coordinators. Moreover, only the social workers provided elements that were protective in nature, such as not overburdening the participants. Average importance scores differed for these elements within groups and between groups. In conclusion, various effective elements were deemed necessary for community sports programs to be successful. Moreover, GCM appeared a successful tool to systematically identify effective elements of an intervention from the perspective of relevant stakeholders.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to gain teachers’ insight and evaluate a teacher training intervention on movement integration (MI).

Methods

An embedded mixed methods study was used to combine post-intervention qualitative and quantitative data from 12 teachers.

Results

Four themes were generated: employable strategies, increased student engagement, value of additional support, and space, time, and behaviour management. These themes illustrate the intrapersonal, institutional, and public policy barriers that impact MI implementation.

Conclusion

An evidence-based teacher MI implementation intervention that utilizes best practices can address intrapersonal barriers to MI use but does not alleviate institutional and public policy barriers.

Confronted with a wide range of digital health tools (DHT), professionals and patients need guidance to use these tools correctly and optimize health management. In the fall of 2020, a DHT library developed by Quebec-based company TherAppX was implemented in 22 institutions. The library was designed to enable healthcare professionals to use DHT in clinical care. The purpose of the current study was to assess the feasibility of implementing the library, including user experience, changes in DHT recommendation habits, and factors that helped or hindered the implementation process. A multi-methods design focusing on secondary use of quantitative data collected by TherAppX and semi-structured interviews with users was employed. While the quantitative analyses indicated infrequent use of the library, qualitative analyses highlighted several factors that hindered its implementation, including certain library and user characteristics and the unprecedented context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the quantitative analyses confirmed interest in DHT and their usefulness during follow-ups. The results revealed a marginally significant pre-post changes in the frequency with which DHT were recommended. This study helped identify areas for improvements and indicates that further evaluation is needed. Future implementations would benefit from ensuring optimal conditions for a successful implementation.

Periods spent in the absence of education, employment, or training (NEET) are associated with adverse psychological wellbeing, social marginalisation, and premature mortality. Implementing effective programs to re-engage young people who are classified, or are at risk of becoming NEET, is of importance to these individuals, family, and society. We conducted a realist evaluation to understand how, and under which circumstances a multi-component program may impact the engagement, behavioural, and psychosocial outcomes of disengaged students at risk of becoming NEET. During the early project phase, a narrative review of the literature and key stakeholder discussions were conducted to develop our initial program theories regarding how the program was expected to achieve its outcomes. Participant observations, video footage, and forty-two interviews were then conducted with teachers and students to form context-mechanism-outcome configurations and to refine these theories. Overall, refined program theories relating to positions of authority, the power of collective experience, exploration of possible life directions, constructivist pedagogies and active learning, and the endorsement of an ethic of caring and strengths-based orientation were developed. Collectively, our findings provide a detailed understanding of the architecture of programs that may benefit disengaged students and help inform the design of future programs aimed at reducing disaffection.

Causal-loop diagramming, a method from system dynamics, is increasingly used in evaluation to describe individuals’ understanding of how policies or programs do or could work ("mental models"). The use of qualitative interviews to inform model development is common, but guidance for how to design and conduct these interviews to elicit causal information in participant mental models is scant. A key strength of semi-structured qualitative interviews is that they let participants speak freely; they are not, however, designed to elicit causal information. Moreover, much of human communication about mental models—particularly larger causal structures such as feedback loops—is implicit. In qualitative research, part of the skill and art of effective interviewing and analysis involves listening for information that is expressed implicitly. Similarly, a skilled facilitator can recognize and inquire about implied causal structures, as is commonly done in group model building. To standardize and make accessible these approaches, we have formalized a protocol for designing and conducting semi-structured interviews tailored to eliciting mental models using causal-loop diagramming. We build on qualitative research methods, system dynamics, and realist interviewing. This novel, integrative method is designed to increase transparency and rigor in the use of interviews for system dynamics and has a variety of potential applications.

This study aims to evaluate the performance of industrial engineering programs across various Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Colombia, focusing on the SaberPRO test outcomes from 2016 to 2018. The evaluation considers three primary dimensions: the type of funding (public vs. private HEIs), geographical region, and program accreditation status.

The methodology involved gathering and analyzing Saber Pro test results from students enrolled in industrial engineering programs at 82 Colombian HEIs during the specified period. In Colombia, the SaberPRO Exam, administered by the Colombian Institute for the Evaluation of Education (ICFES), is a critical measure for assessing the quality of future industrial engineering graduates. This research employs an analytical framework that includes Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and hypothesis testing for mean comparisons to scrutinize the performance of these programs.

Findings reveal notable disparities in performance between public and private institutions and between accredited and non-accredited programs. Additionally, through Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA), the study identifies the competencies with the highest discriminative capacity, recognizing 15 exemplary programs out of the 82 evaluated.

School categorization has impaired the functionality of schools and led to dysfunctional teaching and learning processes. This study explores principals' perspectives on categorization and school functionality. The existing literature on school categorization focuses on the geographical areas of schools and resource allocation, ignoring the complexities of learner behavior and other dynamics within schools. Based on a qualitative case study within an interpretive paradigm, this study was conducted in the uMgungundlovu district of KwaZulu-Natal using semi-structured interviews, document reviews, and observations with five purposefully selected principals of five primary schools. Data analysis revealed that schools were paying significant maintenance and bills to sustain themselves without sufficient funding. In addition, the quintile classification indicates that the socioeconomic status of schools weakens the institution's ability to provide intensive development and growth for administrative and learning needs and to the extent that schools generate their resources for the reconstruction of structures and facilities, affecting the well-being of teachers and learners, as well as external factors such as professional development and academic training, which have a significant impact on the delivery of quality education.

Child marriage has continued to rear its ugly head in Nigerian society. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of storytelling and multimedia music interventions in improving knowledge of the Child Rights Act and reducing the propensity to engage in child marriage. The researchers applied a quasi-experimental design and collected data using a structured questionnaire. The children were assigned into three groups (control, storytelling and multimedia music) of 173 participants. It was found that the interventions were effective. In particular, while storytelling contributed more to reducing the propensity to engage in child marriage, multimedia music contributed more to improving knowledge of the Child Rights Act. These results suggest that storytelling and multimedia music interventions can be effective approaches for addressing the lingering problem of child marriage in Nigeria.

Brazil ranked third in the number of Monkeypox infected worldwide in early September 2022 and eighth in multiple deaths. Brazilian Ministry of Health prepared a public policy to face the smallpox outbreak. This paper aims to analyze the governmental public policy’ impacts on Monkeypox using survival analysis. The information in the database was collected from epidemiological bulletins on the official websites of the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO). The survival analysis with parametric statistical analysis, semiparametric with Cox regression, and nonparametric analysis were used. The inference of causality was perceived by the impact caused by the national public policy with the proportional reduction in the number of cases in the treatment group (Chi-sq = 117.783, p < 0.001), contrary to what was perceived in the control group, as well as survival about the time of the states that elaborated their plans based on what was made available by the government. The need to evaluate government projects should be within the scope of project management in Brazilian states and provide for more assertive decision-making in the fight against smallpox