Project Summary

Title: Evaluation of Participant Perceptions of Senior Adult Programming at Westcott Community Center

 

Context: A final project for course IDE 641: Techniques in Educational Evaluation

 

Author(s): Laurie Holtsbery, Amber A. Walton, Melissa Whipps

 

IDD&E Component: Evaluation and Implementation (17) Evaluate instructional and non-instructional interventions.

 

Reflection/Self-Assessment:

Overview

In this final course project, students each proposed an evaluation study idea to the whole class, then teamed up with 1 or 2 classmates to prepare and implement one of the proposals.  A real-world client in a real educational context was to be chosen so that, in coordination with the client, the evaluation team would design, develop, implement, and evaluate their course project with real participants and data.

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Strengths

The greatest strength in this project was the real-world practical application of our instructional design/evaluation skills.  Though we had formulated complete project plans in other IDD&E courses for imaginary clients, IDE 641's focus on a real-world context was an exciting opportunity for experiential learning.  Our team enjoyed our site visits at the Westcott Community Center (Westcott CC), where we met with the Director and other staff, and thoroughly enjoyed our time with the senior adult participants, collecting their completed surveys and assisting them with survey completion if they asked for help.  The Director of Westcott CC was happy with the results of our evaluation and planned to share the results with stakeholders to make decisions about changes to senior programming.

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Opportunities

This was the first IDD&E course that my teammates had taken and one of the last courses in the IDD&E Master's program for me.  My teammates expressed frustration that they felt unprepared with the skills they would need to execute the project.  Class readings and activities, they felt, did not provide adequate information for them to equally share the work with project planning, execution, and evaluation activities.  I definitely felt I was at an advantage, having completed almost all of my IDD&E course work and feeling very prepared with instructional design knowledge and skills.  Nevertheless, implementing a real-world evaluation plan was intimidating at times for all of us because the stakes seemed higher due to the pressure of meeting the needs of a real-world client.

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Another struggle with this project was the limited sample population to which we had access.  More than 300 senior adults had participated in Westcott CC programming, yet only 25 seniors regularly attended daily programming, which meant that our sample size was limited to only 25 individuals.  In some ways, this limited sample helped us control the quantity of data we had to collect, manage, and evaluate, but it also made it more of a challenge to identify broad themes and provide rich, universal suggestions for improvement of senior programming.