Deck 28: Evaluation As Control

Question 1

Find an example of a needs assessment conducted on a social problem in your community within the past three years. What are the recommendations? Have they been carried out?

Answer 1

No Answer

Question 2

Find a journal article discussing an outcome evaluation of a social services program. Provide a brief summary of the findings and recommendations.

Answer 2

No Answer

Question 3

Find a journal article in social work that demonstrates one of the three general approaches to assessing outcomes (p. 422-423). Briefly explain the study and identify three key findings.

Answer 3

No Answer

Question 4

Find an article on process evaluation and discuss why this approach was preferable to an outcome evaluation.

Question 5

Find an article on quality assurance and identify the major components of quality assurance in the article as identified in your textbook (p. 422).

Question 6

When is an outcome evaluation used?

Question 7

Define the term "needs assessment". Give an example in your community where this might be used.

Question 8

When would a researcher choose to conduct a process evaluation?

Question 9

What does cost-benefit analysis show?

Question 10

What three things is a service evaluation concerned with?

Question 11

Outcome evaluations using quantitative approaches usually

A) Use key variables
B) Use standardized tests
C) Are concerned with internal validity
D) All of the above

Question 12

Process evaluations

A) Determine how and why interventions work
B) Use cost-performance measures
C) Focus on the impact of services on clients
D) None of the above

Question 13

A criteria useful in assessing the merits of objectives would be

A) Clarity
B) Confidentiality
C) Internal validity
D) External validity

Question 14

Needs assessments

A) Explore the need for a potential or already existing program
B) Confirm that a social problem that needs to be addressed does exist
C) Would be concerned with service evaluation
D) A and B above
E) B and C above

Question 15

Service evaluation involves

A) Monitoring
B) Measuring
C) Evaluating
D) All of the above
E) A and B above

Question 16

A peer review

A) Focuses on how well a service is delivered
B) Is conducted by members of a different profession
C) Includes designating standards
D) A and B above
E) A and C above

Question 17

Evaluations are conducted to

A) Determine if a program is needed
B) Determine if a program is well run
C) Determine if a program is worth the cost
D) All of the above

Question 18

Cost-outcome evaluations

A) Are concerned with efficiency
B) Are concerned only with effectiveness
C) Determine needs
D) Determine outcomes
E) Determine process

Question 19

Cost-benefit evaluations

A) Address cost-performance
B) Address service-outcome efficiency
C) Address cost-outcome efficiency
D) All of the above
E) None of the above.

Question 20

Needs assessments are conducted after a program is established to determine service objectives.

Question 21

Evaluations serve a variety of target audiences, each with its own stake in the service or program being examined.

Question 22

Qualitative approaches help uncover the unexpected, unplanned factors that quantitative methods can miss.

Question 23

Evaluators must concern themselves with a number of possible confounding variables or possible alternative explanations.

Question 24

Outcome evaluations involve limited research activities.

Question 25

Evaluators never examine records of who receives services as these might bias their results.

Question 26

Objectives should be conceived in terms of ends rather than means to ends.

Question 27

Manipulability refers to consensus about the meaning of the terms used in the stated objectives.

Question 28

A needs assessment should consider who the proposed clients are, compared to who is really being served by the program.

Question 29

Social welfare programs and services evolve from a collective sense that there is a social problem that must be dealt with.