Hey all,
 
At BICAS we have done some (haphazard?) program evaluation on a more general level. I put together a survey that looked at what programs people were using, what they liked best/least about their interactions with BICAS, and so forth. It did provide results that could be used for grant writing purposes, but almost more importantly it provided some feedback that was assessed and addressed internally, which is always good.
 
I have worked with SPSS and such, and unless you have some training in it, and can afford the software (not sure what it costs these days?), I would stick to something that will give you useful data. In other words, keep it simple.
 
I'd be happy to share the survey if you like, take care, Daniela

Neighborhood Bike Works <info@neighborhoodbikeworks.org> wrote:
Hey Rachael,
We count participants, bikes, and (estimated) tons of materials reclaimed from the solid waste stream.  For youth programs, we do pre- and post- tests where students and their guardians answer a few questions about attitudes and habits related to health and safety, and slightly longer satisfaction surveys where students write about what they liked, learned, and hated in the class.  A few years ago, some folks set up an Excel workbook which turns the answers into statistics.  I don't really understand how it works, but it does.

Short stories are good, too.  I wish I was better about collecting and using them in any organized way.  I also wish our evaluation text was stronger, but space constraints make hard to write everything in as much detail as I'd like.  I look forward to others' feedback.

Jimmie

rachael spiewak wrote:
Hi, everyone.

We're working on grant seeking these days, so I'm wondering if anyone has ideas about how to do program evaluation.  Can it be as simple as number of participants, number of bikes distributed/repaired, short narratives from participants..?  Anyone doing pre and post tests or using SPSS?  Can you count social change on your fingers?  : )

Thanks!
rachael

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