Assignment #2

The program to be evaluated is a prenatal exercise program for aboriginal women with previous Gestational Diabetes Mellitus. As I read through the program description I felt that as a very new program a formative evaluation would be most appropriate. As a new program extensive data on the correlation between the program and the affects it has on reducing Gestational Diabetes Mellitus rates and also the rate of Type 2 Diabetes appearing later in life amongst aboriginal women, who are the target of this program, is not available. Given this aspect of the program it is hard at this point to evaluate the product of the program and therefore see that it would be beneficial instead to evaluate the implementation of the program and its activities and to gauge whether or not it is meeting the needs of the participants and also whether or not it is successfully attracting and keeping participants. To complete this evaluation I would likely follow a very simple minimalist approach such as the Scriven Model.

In Scriven’s model formative evaluation gives feedback during the delivery of a program for immediate and future modification. A formative evaluation would allow the program and the program activities to be judges as the program is forming, and as such focuses on the process. As the evaluator I would at this point not be concerned so much with the main goals of the program which are reducing the rates of Diabetes amongst the females of the aboriginal community and instead would look at how the program was immediately meeting the needs of these women and where improvements and modifications could be made. Formative evaIuations tend to be done on the fly, and I, as the evaluator would begin my evaluation process by interviewing and surveying the program facilitator, other personnel such as the fitness instructors and the participants, including those that may not have stuck with the program.

Some questions I would like to ask at this point are:

To the pregnant women participants:

1.       How did you hear about the program?

2.       How often do you attend?

3.       What challenges/obstacles prevent you from attending?

4.       Did you notice any changes to your health?

5.       Did the program encourage you to adopt a healthier lifestyle outside of class days?

6.       Is the program meeting your needs?

7.       If you stopped attending, why?

8.       What else would you like from the program?

To others involved such as the Aboriginal Elder Liason person:

1.       Do you feel the women participants are being well served by the program?

2.       What obstacles have you noticed in attracting participants and having them stick with the program through their pregnancies?

3.       What else would you like to see from the program?

4.       What other resources, agencies, etc. could be used?

I believe the answers to questions such as these would provide the program facilitators with a considerable amount of feedback to determine if changes are needed to the program either immediately in a small way or over the long term on a larger scale. To me a very simple approach at this point is best. Questions in the form of interviews or surveys need to be asked and based on the answers improvements to the program content or activities can be made. This will help ensure the success of the program so that later on the main goal of the program can be evaluated and data about the incidence of Diabetes amongst the participants can be analyzed.