Developing an Evaluation Plan

Key Definitions:

Goals are general while objectives are specific.

Goals are general intentions towards the attainment of something, they tend to be somewhat abstract, big picture and challenging to measure. While goals may be broad in nature, they signal an intention or a vision for the future. Goals are long term and are the end result. Once a goal is set, developing clear objectives is the next step towards achieving the desired outcomes.

An example of a goal would be to end rape culture on campus.

Objectives are precise actions for accomplishment of a specific task. Objectives operationalize the goal in measurable ways and have a defined completion date. Objectives are the means to the end. They are short or medium term. An example of an objective would be to create an online media tool to educate students about what rape culture is, how it manifests on campus, how to identify it and effective ways to intervene to respond to rape culture when identified.

Outcomes are the evaluation of the strategies results against their intended or projected results. Outcomes are what you hope to achieve when you accomplish the objectives. Outcomes are the evidence that objectives were achieved. When evaluating strategies to address rape culture on campus, the outcomes would describe or list measurable content or knowledge that participants have mastered, attitude or behavior change, skills or competencies that they have gained and can apply.

Some questions that may help pinpoint your goals, objectives and outcomes:

  • Is there a specific issue or problem you are addressing or hope to address with your strategy? Can you explain or describe the issue?
  • Who is the target audience for your strategy and why? Which specific groups would your strategy need to work with in order to successfully address the issue?
  • What do you hope to achieve or what could be different
    (in your chosen target group/in your classroom/on campus)
    if you successfully address the issue?
  • What specific changes do you hope your initiatives will help create in the participants, the community, or any other systems?
  • Ideally, what might be different in what you or others see or hear in the classroom or on campus as objectives are being met?
  • What are some of the short-term, mid-term and long-term outcomes that could be used as measures to ensure the strategy is on track to achieve the stated objectives?
  • What data can I collect or what can I observe that will measure whether objectives create the change I hoped for?

A BASIC EXAMPLE

Stakeholders had the Goal of creating a learning and working environment that is free of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and other forms of sexual violence.

An Objective that they developed to support the goal was to create a curriculum that would educate the community about gender-based sexual violence; specifically increasing understanding(s) of consent, bystander intervention and how to safely intervene, and where to go to access services on campus.

There are a range of creative, collaborative, and participatory ways to measure outcomes. However, for the purposes of illustrating Outcomes, we could say that following the curriculum, participants were interviewed and were able to correctly define consent and explain key issues, describe 3 ways to safely intervene as a bystander, and were able to identify where and how to access services on campus.

Basic Steps in Creating an Evaluation Plan

  1. Write a brief description of the strategy that is being evaluated.
  2. Ask why you are engaging in evaluation? What do you hope to achieve through the evaluation process?
  3. Identify Goals and Objectives. This is an essential step in conducting evaluation. Without identifying a clear objective that the strategy is designed to achieve, it’s unlikely that the evaluation will be effective. Many of our stakeholders were well into conducting their strategy but had not identified the objectives that they were trying to achieve. This results in evaluation questions that don’t align with the strategy’s objectives. Asking stakeholders to think about why they chose a specific strategy and what were they attempting to achieve helps in identifying objectives.
  4. Identify the Outcomes that will be used to measure whether you have met your objectives.
  5. Identify who you need to speak to in order to evaluate whether the strategy has been effective at meeting objectives. Look beyond
    the usual suspects. Often when stakeholders evaluate a strategy, they only include the students in the evaluation process. However, facilitators, professors and administration who have participated in the creation, organization and implementation of a strategy can also provide valuable insights regarding the effectiveness of a strategy or how it might be scaled, improved, etc.
  6. Determine how you will gather information about whether the strategy was effective. What approaches and methods are best suited or aligned to evaluate the strategy?