Evaluating Your Program

Type of Program Evaluation

Process & Impact

Determining the type of program evaluation needed is often helpful in meeting your needs. You want to be clear in what you want to know. A good evaluation depends upon asking important and insight-producing questions. NOAA has a helpful table that shows common research questions for the different program stages.

The questions you want to ask and the evaluation type you use will likely differ whether it is at the early, mid-period, or end of the program. An evaluation study may employ more than one type of evaluation.

Process evaluations sometimes called “formative evaluations”, are about the processes involved in delivering the program. They are typically done early or midway into the program to improve and strengthen the program. Is it being implemented as intended? Are the needs of the recipients what was assumed when the program was designed? Are any changes needed? For example, what you learn from CDP results early on may cause you to alter the program and/or the way it is being implemented.

Impact evaluations, sometimes called “outcome evaluations” are primarily concerned with determining whether the program has had the desired effect, and whether the effects are due to the program, or other factors. The “effects” might include changes in knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, or skills. For example, the CDP might be administered pre- and post, to see what changes, if any, there are in the scores. (Example: “Career Key Sandwich” image below)

Doing an impact evaluation that meets scientific standards of quality can be quite challenging and expensive, or even impossible. But, still, measuring outcomes should be done, even if it doesn’t meet these standards.

Helpful Career Key Central Tools

Career Key Central (CK Central) will help you get the most out of your program with the CDP. You will find the “tools” below helpful in doing your evaluation.

Contact clients with Let’s Connect to retake the CDP

Follow up with clients by sending a custom or Career Key-created template email message requesting them to retake the CDP. When they return to your organization’s web page where you host the CDP, the client who has taken it before will automatically be asked to retake it.

Learn more in Manage CDP Clients> Engage and Follow Up with Clients.

Filter Client List for pre/post clients

To locate clients who have taken the CDP twice, check the “Retakes” box in the Client List.

Learn more in Manage CDP Clients

Create and manage groups

You may want to create a group for your pre/post study clients so you can easily filter, select and export their data.

Learn more in Manage CDP Clients> Create and Manage Groups.

Export clients’ data into .csv

Export and download results data for a selection or all of your clients in a .csv file. You can do further analysis or upload into a different system.

Learn more in Manage CDP Clients> Export Clients’ Data.

Next Step:

About Career Decision Profile > CDP Manual

Related:

Support > Manage CDP Clients