A program intended to reduce violence in schools, taught youth coping skills on how to deal with stress and negative emotions. While on the surface, it appeared to be successful, the school board would not continue funding the program unless an official evaluation was done. Using the knowledge you gained in Chapter 1 so far, can you identify two reasons why a formal evaluation of a program is important to the school board in deciding to continue funding it?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary, but here are three options. The intention is for them to know the material well enough to infer that formal evaluation is important because there are errors in reasoning; the errors could reveal necessary changes in the curriculum, which could lead to money wasted if it was not working and that money could have been used elsewhere. Here are three potential reasons: (1) Formal evaluations with scientific methods would provide a more accurate representation of whether or not the program was working and worthy of being funded for another year. (2) Sometimes we have selective observations and would see the ways the program was working, but ignore the areas that it wasn't working. As such, it would be important to have a formal evaluation so that the school board can know if the appropriate outcomes were reached by the program and if changes should be made. (3) A formal evaluation may be able to reveal unique environmental circumstances that influenced violence in the schools and therefore the school board may move to a more comprehensive program rather than one focused on just individual risk factors.