Final Project Overview: Evaluation Design
For your Final Project, due in Week 10, you will demonstrate your understanding of the major topics presented in this course by applying them to a public or nonprofit organization of your choice. You will develop an evaluation design that could be used to evaluate a program, problem, or policy. The evaluation design will address this program, problem, or policy in your organization or an organization with which you are familiar. The organization should be within the public or nonprofit sector. The purpose of the Final Project is to apply what you learn about research and evaluation design methods to the evaluation of a program, problem, or policy in the organization. This is merely an evaluation design. You are not required to collect data and implement the research to evaluate the program.
Your Final Project will be submitted in the form of a 15page (not including the title or reference pages), double-spaced, APA-formatted paper. You must complete the following elements:
Create and include a title page with your name, the course name, and the title of the research project.
Write an Executive Summary that briefly describes the highlights of the evaluation design and the program, problem, or policy it is intended to evaluate.
Briefly describe the organization and include a brief history of the organization as well as information about the purpose of the organization.
Describe the program, problem, or policy to be evaluated, include information regarding the purpose of the program, problem, or policy, and explain why conducting this research to evaluate the program, problem, or policy is important to this organization.
Describe the research question(s) and hypothesis(es). Clearly articulate them so that you would be able to answer the research questions using the design you develop.
Explain the evaluation design (i.e., descriptive, associational, causal) that is most appropriate to evaluate the program, problem, or policy. Justify the use of the evaluation design and explain how it can answer the research question(s).
Explain the sampling technique, and justify how this technique will help to answer the research question.
Explain potential ethical issues for this evaluation design. Analyze the implications of the ethical issues and explain how you would respond to them
Explain the findings you would anticipate if you conducted the research and implemented the evaluation design to evaluate the program, problem, or policy. Assure that your explanation is appropriate for your intended audience.
Your Final Project must demonstrate both breadth and depth of knowledge and critical thinking appropriate to graduate-level scholarship. It must follow APA Publication Manual guidelines and be free of typographical, spelling, and grammatical errors. The project should be 15 pages in length (double-spaced), not including the title page, the Executive Summary, and references.
Be sure to support your Final Project with specific references to all resources used in its preparation. You must use a minimum of 10 scholarly resources.