Program Activities and Their Theoretical Bases

In this Application you are asked to describeand analyze the intervention strategies-that is, the activities-in your selected program, and identify the ways in which they are grounded in theory. Refer to your Learning Resources this week, particularly the section on designing appropriate interventions (pages 227-232), to help you assess how appropriately these activities have been designed.

Develop a list of interview questions so that you can complete the Application Assignment described below. After completing your interview with your program contact person, complete a 2- to 3-page paper, in which you address the following:

Summarize briefly the changes that the program is intended to bring about (for example, increased physical activity in overweight Latino children).

Describe at least two key activities of the program. For each activity:
Relate the activity to the intervention strategy listed Chapter 8 of the McKenzie textbook. (For example, is this a health communication strategy?)

Describe any evidence that was used in developing activities.

Explain whether you think the activity is appropriate for the priority population.

Describe the theoretical bases that ground these activities and whether these are appropriate. In other words, what theories can you identify that led to (or would justify) these particular activities? If no theory was used, what theory or theories do you think would have been helpful? Explain your reasons.

In light of this analysis, summarize whether you think each of the activities is appropriately designed and will bring about the intended outcomes.

Part 2

Evaluation takes place at various points within a program's lifecycle, and requires different kinds of questions to elicit the information that is needed to improve the program and to determine its effectiveness. Some of the most commonly used questions are focused specifically on the processes, impacts, and outcomes of the program.

For this Application, you are asked to provide a total of nine evaluation questions that would be appropriate for your selected health promotion program. Prepare for this Application by reviewing your Learning Resources this week (especially the Issel textbook, pages 366-370) for guidelines on good evaluation questions. You may find it helpful as well to locate and compare a number of sample questions through online searches (the Web sites in the Optional Resources section are a good place to start).

The nine questions should include three process questions, three impact questions, and three outcome questions.

You may use questions already formulated by the program's designers, or questions written by you, or a combination of these. Make sure, however, that:

Each of these questions is a sound and an appropriate question of its type for this program

Data could reasonably be collected to answer each of them

If necessary, revise the program's existing questions so that they meet these standards.

In addition to listing these nine questions, provide a brief explanation (2-3 paragraphs total) of how these different categories of questions differ from each other. That is, explain what their different purposes are and why these particular questions are good examples of this type of evaluation question.