Developing an Evaluation Plan
Before implementing a proposed solution, it is prudent to carry out an evaluation. This allows the researcher an opportunity to determine whether the proposed solutions are effective. Various methods of evaluation do exist and can be adopted in this project.
The proposed solution that requires evaluation is on the best strategies that can help professionals, therapists and parents to identify, improve the level of learning, social skills and attention among children and adults that suffer from autism to impact on overall delivery of care. The methods to be used in the evaluation of effectiveness of the proposed solution include surveys and personal interviews. The survey and personal interviews will seek to find out how autism arises and the rate at which people are diagnosed with autism. Others include; establishing how parents contribute to the management of the disorders, effectiveness of medication in treatment and management of the disorder and the relationship that should exist between the people with the disorder, their parents and therapies.
Personal interviews will help the researcher to identify the strength and weaknesses of the proposed solutions. This is achieved through open-ended questions and allows the researcher to focus on important points that contributes to the evaluation of the solution that can have positive impacts. Likewise, surveys are essential in many ways including helping in identification of likes and dislikes before the project is implemented. They are excellent in evaluation of outcome; information can be collected from various people and can be done anonymously or confidentially hence is more valid. These surveys and personal interviews will be conducted on the professional doctors, family therapists and parents. From their responses, the researcher will be in a position to determine whether, the proposed solutions will have impact on the outcome or not.
Various variables that will be incorporated or adopted in the evaluation will include intensity of campaigns and sensitization, the rate of people that develop the disorders, parents’ attitude about the disorder, family therapists’ attitudes and level of qualification. These variables are essential and they help the researcher to respond or to get answers to various issues in the proposed solution. By evaluating basing or zeroing on these variables, the researcher will be in a better position to understand clearly. Various tools will be used to educate project participants and in evaluating the project outcomes. Some of the participants may not be aware of the problem and may not understand how to respond. Educating them on such aspects becomes essential to ensuring that the process becomes successful. Likewise, project outcomes should be evaluated to ensure that they are acted upon appropriately. The tools that will be used in this initiative include surveys, questionnaires, and PowerPoint. The choice of an instrument or a tool will depend on various factors, the level of the participants, locations among many others.
Surveys and questionnaires are essential because they can be used over a larger population. Through the surveys, and questionnaires, the researcher will be able to understand the level of education of their participants and their level of understanding of the disorder (Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) (2013). From such information, then analysis will be done to find the appropriate way forward. Likewise, these tools can be used in finding out the project outcomes. The respondents will be able to provide their views about the questions and after they are analyzed. Identifying the level of education of participants will inform the way the questions will be designed. If the participants are educated, the language that will be used will rhyme with their education level and vice versa. Another way that education of participants can be done is through PowerPoint presentation. This kind of education may happen in a gathering. The participants will be required to convene to a certain point from where they will be trained about the process of filling data into the questionnaires. Training through this platform is effective to people that are educated, however, those parents or participants that would not poses these skills will be translated to ensure that they get the information.
Interviews can also used to evaluate the project outcomes. Some of the participants will be asked about how they felt about the process. This will help to determine whether it was successful or not. Project evaluation is important, as it will enable the researcher to establish whether the project met the objectives or not. It will also enable the researcher to make amendments to ensure that the process moves on as expected.
In conclusion, in any evaluation, it is prudent for the researcher to have a plan to provide direction. Evaluations should be taken with seriousness and should be accurate, reliable, and of reasonable quality. Furthermore, it should be relevant and useful to the users. In this research, the methods used in evaluations of the proposed solutions included surveys and personal interviews.
Reference
Center for Diseases Control and Prevention. (CDC). (2013). Evaluation methods: ection three. Retrieved Form: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pub-res/dypw/04_methods.htm
