There are fourteen programs in the Ethnographic Assessment & Evaluation System (EAES), three programs in formative evaluation; four in process evaluation and monitoring, three in outcome evaluation, and four in impact evaluation. Many EAES programs draw on and are similar to other programs in the CEHC.
The first formative evaluation program reviews whether and how a project has carried out an activity. The second formative evaluation program is similar to the EICCARS’s Cultural Assessment Programs, in that it entails an analysis of the various organizations involved in a CBI as to their resource capacity for achieving the project’s goals and objectives. The final formative evaluation program involves an assessment of whether the project has carried out any type of community assessment research.
Some projects don’t achieve their desired outcomes because of poor relationships or dynamics between the project and the community or population targeted by the project. The first process evaluation/monitoring program monitors this relationship.
The second process evaluation/monitoring program consists of a simple 1-2 page form which is maintained by project staff responsible for tasks during specific project phases. Staff members record tasks types, start and end dates, and barriers and enablers experienced. These forms are collected and analyzed on a weekly basis by CuSAG staff.
The third evaluation/monitoring programs analyses whether project objectives for specific phases are being achieved, and the barriers and enablers to achievement. Reports are produced by this program, which are then used for the final evaluation/monitoring program, in which a one day Process Evaluation Workshop is held at the end of each phase.
The first outcome evaluation program uses traditional one group pre and post-test survey instruments at the project’s end in order to measure the achievement of long term goals and objectives. The second outcome evaluation program also administers pre and post-test survey instruments to those project participants exposed to project intervention(s), along with a control group. The final outcome evaluation program combines elements of the first two.
The first impact evaluation program assesses at whether the changes measured at a project’s end still prevails at predetermined intervals following the program’s end. The same instruments used to measure outcomes at project’s end are repeated, but only to those project participants exposed to the project’s interventions.
The second impact evaluation program uses a survey instrument that has the same questions as the project pre-and post test instrument, but has additional questions related to the diffusion of the project’s desired outcomes. This instrument is administered at predetermined intervals following the project’s end, with the focus not on those exposed to the intervention, but on a randomized sample of persons from the community or population targeted by the project.
The third impact evaluation program assesses the degree to which project interventions have been institutionalized into the health and social service infrastructure of the target community. This activity is also carried out at predetermined intervals following the completion of the project. The methods used here involve informal and formal, individual or group ethnographic interviewing, organizational document analysis, and a variety of other methods.
The final impact evaluation program explores project outcomes that might have occurred which were not planned for or expected. More traditional ethnographic and qualitative interviews are carried out with a sample of project participants who had been exposed to the intervention.
