Success StoryEvaluation Capacity Building



Evaluation Capacity Building

Author: Omolola Adedokun

Planning Unit: Community & Leadership Development

Major Program: Staff Development

Outcome: Initial Outcome

As part of Kentucky Extension’s commitment to enhancing and sustaining the ability and capacity of Extension specialists and agents to conduct high quality program evaluations, the Director of Extension Evaluation developed and implemented training sessions focused on the connections between program planning and impact/outcome reporting. The trainings, “From Logic Models to Success Stories” and “Planning for Impact,” illustrated how to use the logic model to align program activities with expected outcomes and demonstrated the logical connections between the components of a logic model and the essential elements of a success story. Fifty-two (52) specialists and agents participated in the trainings of which thirty-seven (37) responded to a retrospective pretest-posttest tool that was deployed to assess training outcomes. Data analysis showed statistically significant improvements on all learning outcomes. For example, 95% of respondents showed improvements in their understanding of the components of a logic model and 89% increased their knowledge of how to use a logic model to align program activities with outcomes. Similarly, 86% increased their understanding of the components of a success story, 92% increased their understanding of how to connect logic models and success stories, and 92% increased their understanding of the tiers of outcomes to report in success stories.