Research Techniques for Program Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation

Erscheinungsjahr 1977
ISBN: 978-0-231-03944-4
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 178 Seiten, Format (B × H): 162 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 436 g

Program administrators and planners face increasing pressure from funding sources, professional groups, and recipients of service to provide and to make use of systematic data. Until recently, administrators could rely on research consultants to assist them in performing these research tasks, but with increased costs and reduced funds, many administrators and planners have had to utilize research concepts and techniues themselves in developing, maintaining, and modifying social programs. Research Techniques for Program Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation is designed to provide research skills that will assist administrators directly in making program decisions. The book offers administrators of health, education, and social welfare programs, as well as students of social work and public administration, a wide range of research techniques for increasing the quality and effectiveness of administrative practice, lessening at the same time their dependence on costly research consultation. Research Techniques contains three major sections: program planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Each section begins with a description of the administrative funciton to which it is devoted, followed by a set of selected research techniques, each illustrated with a hypothetical case and an exercise for the reader in applying the technique to an existing social program or agency.Planning for a new agency program requires valid and reliable information about the needs of the target population, the existing programs to meet these needs, effective intervention stratefies, and the skills of the members of the agency staff. Professors Epstein and Tripodi suggest valuable guidelines for collecting theese data. In addition, they outline the specific decisions that must be made so that realistic objectives can be set for relating client demand to the available supply of services. Among the reserach techniques for the program planning which they explore are questionnaires, interviews, research literature already available, and observational techniques. Monitoring measures the actual program performance against its planning objectives, enabling administrators to modify a program operation or report its success to sponsors. With program monitoring, an administrator can decide whether to reallocate staff, to ask for an increase in budget, or to realign policies in compliance with legal requirements. Separate chapters are devoted to sampling techniques for asserting staff performance as well as to the principles of data analysis.Program evaluation takes effectiveness and efficiency into account in assembling the achievement of program goals. Emphasizing administrative self-evaluation, Research Techniques explains the interrupted time series design, the replicated cross-sectional survey design, comparative designs, and the crossover design in terms the nonstatistician will find easy to understand. Research Techniques for Program Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation is an indispensable guide, offering administratos and planners sound professional advice on more resposible administrative decision making.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Epstein, Irwin

Tripodi, Tony

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Literatur für Manager
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Arbeit/Sozialpädagogik
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Empirische Sozialforschung, Statistik
• Naturwissenschaften Physik Angewandte Physik Soziophysik, Wirtschaftsphysik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction1. Program Planning2. Constructing Questionnaires for Need-Assessment Surveys3. Interviewing for Resource Surveys4. Assessing Research in Planning Intervention Strategies5. Using Observational Techniques for Planning Staff Training Pograms2. Program Monitoring6. Using Forms to Conduct a Client Census7. Using Forms to Monitor Staff Activities8. Using Smapling in Monitoring Staff Performance9. Data Analysis and Interpretation for Program Monitoring3. Program Evaluation10. Interrupted Time Series Designs11. Replicated Cross-Sectional Survey Designs12. Comparative Experimental Designs13. Crossover Designs14. Summary and Conclusions

Über Autor(innen)

Irwin Epstein has held research positions at Mobilization for Youth and the Institute of labor and Industrial Realtions at the University of Michigan, where he is currently professor of social work. Together with Dr. Tripodi and Dr. P. Fellin, he coauthored Social Program Evaluation and Social Workers at Work.Tony Tripodi is professor of social work at the university of Michigan and is a member of the Editorial Board of Evaluation and Program Planning. He is the author of Uses and Abuses of Social Research.