Program Evaluation: A Varity of Rigorous Methods Can Help identify Effective Interventions

“Program Evaluation: A Variety of Rigorous Methods Can Help Identify Effective Interventions” United States Government Accountability Office. http://www.eric.ed.gov.proxy.library.ndsu.edu/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/45/f1/1c.pdfThe report seeks to provide assessment and evaluation regarding 63 human service programs relating to early education, public health, and human services.

What I found interesting about the article wasn’t what was determined in regards to what works and what doesn’t but the way in which that went about making those determinations. The method utilized for this study was a quasi-experimental design in which some programs were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Level of significance was set (value unknown0 and programs were essentially weighed against each other. The document that reports the findings was fairly thorough and complete however I think the information provided based on methodology is fairly useless.

From my perspective, using a quasi-experimental design to assess and evaluate programs may work for legislators but means very little to the program developers. Without qualitative data coupled with the quantitative data I find myself questioning what the report is representing. This is not the manufacturing of widgets or conducting experiments in the laboratory. Education and human service is only as strong as the understanding that comes with HEARING and understanding people’s experiences.

I found myself smiling and shaking my head when the report talked about attempts t limit other influencing variables. The whole notion of evidence based practice is merely the medical model revisited. We cannot quantify and assign value to every aspect of being human and in doing so we run the risk of turning human beings into simplistic, non-feeling research subjects.