The Evaluation Plan (Cont'd)

Step Four: Gather Credible Evidence

Stakeholders develop a sound data collection plan that takes into consideration many factors such as how to collect reliable and relevant data; how to obtain maximum quality; how to balance the quality and quantity of your evaluation activities; and how to make sure your evaluation plan matches your resources.

The evaluation team, composed of representatives from stakeholders and program staff, will need to decide what to measure in order to address each question. The things you choose to measure become the program's standards or benchmarks, known as indicators, that will serve as reference points to help the program assess its progress in reaching its goals.

• Identify specific indicators to answer each evaluation question
  • Example
    • Your evaluation question is "How has the program affected the community's barriers to walking?"
    • You might select the following issues as your indicators of what you will measure to answer the question:
      • Description of original barriers to walking
      • Description of barriers to walking after the program
      • Quantity and quality of advocacy efforts
• Establish goals, which are specific levels of success for each indicator to measure the expected effects of the program ("performance indicators"). Choose indicators that are measurable using available resources, and realistic for your program.
  • Example
    • Your evaluation question is "Are the participants walking more as a result of being in the program?"
    • To answer the question you selected the indicator number of steps walked per day
    • To set a goal to measure this question, you might select a performance indicator of 5,000 steps per day
• Decide on an evaluation design
• Collect data from multiple sources (people, documents, observations, existing data, etc.)
  • Data collection logistics should be culturally acceptable to participants
  • Steps to maintain confidentiality must be planned