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An overview of the research In November 2009, considerable interest was generated by a study day of the National Association of Principal Educational Psychologists (NAPEP) on evaluation of outcomes of the work of Educational Psychology Services (EPSs). Following this, my service requested that I investigate this area during my training placement, as a topic for my doctoral research. A review of the literature and professional networking sites (for example, EPNET) revealed that although many services at the time were considering or actively seeking valid and reliable ‘tools’ to evaluate services, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, in practice, few were undertaking evaluation systematically, and those that were did not feel confident that they were doing it well. While a number of services were regularly collecting data on how much service (quantity) they were delivering, to whom and in what ways, and on the subjective experience for a range of service users, few were focussing on outcomes, and even fewer were measuring these in any systematic way (Norgate, 2010). My service was one of those that already collected data on delivery in terms of quantity and subjective quality, and they had just introduced Target Monitoring and Evaluation (TME) (Dunsmuir, Brown, Iyadurai and Monsen, 2009), as a goals-based approach to informing service delivery, and a way of recording consultation and engagement with children, families and schools. While this was a positive step towards more systematic evaluation, it was noted that a missing dimension was what the children themselves felt about the outcome of engagement with an EP, and whether they felt that things had been improved in domains that were significant to them. While there was considerable interest in hearing children’s voices driven by international agreements, legislation, policy initiatives and research, a review of the literature suggested that engaging with children in meaningful ways, and eliciting valid views, was a challenging endeavour. This was particularly true for certain groups of children and young people; those with additional needs, particularly those with profound and multiple difficulties or severe language difficulties, and also for the youngest children in the pre-school and primary years. The two research studies presented here aimed to begin to redress that balance. I chose to focus on the collective voice of local children aged 7 – 11 years in Key Stage 2 (KS2), in mainstream primary schools, and of all abilities, including children with additional needs at all three stages of the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice. My reason for this was to ascertain the views of ‘typical’ children in mainstream education, so that they might be better understood by adults (presented in Paper 1), and in order to produce a general measure (presented in Paper 2), which could later be modified and refined, as appropriate, for other groups, for example, younger age groups, or children with more significant difficulties. Paper 1 briefly reviews the literature on hearing children’s voices, some of the difficulties encountered in this enterprise, and approaches that have been proposed to overcome these, including attempts to actively involve them in decision making and research about issues that affect their lives. The findings of a selection of studies, which have explored what children and young people have identified as being important factors in their school lives, are presented. The qualitative research study that follows is informed by this review of the selected literature. The approach is informed by ‘positive psychology’, with an explicit focus on ‘what works’, while not denying or ignoring what children say does not work for them. Forty primary school children in Key stage 2 were interviewed using a range of approaches. The children were recruited from local schools with differing demographics in the South West of the United Kingdom. The research approach was pragmatic, and adopted a critical realist perspective and mixed methodology. A thematic analysis was carried out to explore children’s understandings of what helped them to learn at school (Paper 1), and these understandings were subsequently used within a realist approach to develop a tool co-designed with the children (Paper 2). The approach was also inductive, being driven by the data rather than theory. The aim was to put the children at the centre of the research, not just as participants, but as collaborators and co-constructors of the interpretations made of their ‘talk’, and of the subsequent design of a ‘tool’ to facilitate helpful conversations about what they might like to change, and to subsequently measure any impact of interventions. The interview data were analysed using a thematic approach, and the findings were discussed, modified and validated through focus groups with the original interviewees. A thematic network or ‘map of the child’s-eye view’ is presented. A descriptive reading of three emerging topics; academic competence, social competence and social recognition, is offered and discussed, and exemplified by original quotes from the children. (Due to the word limit, additional descriptive analysis is presented in the appendices). Finally, at a deeper level of analysis, two overarching themes, ‘competence’ and ‘connectedness’ are suggested as having emerged from the data. The results of the thematic analysis are linked to previous research, and it is proposed that, while this is only one possible reading of the data presented, there are significant resonances with data collected for children and young people across cultures and age ranges. Therefore findings may tentatively be generalised beyond the local culture. The implications of the findings for EP practice are discussed. In Paper 2, the previous study is used to inform the design of a measure to assess children’s satisfaction with their school life, in terms of issues that are important to them. Current literature on evaluating outcomes in EP services is briefly reviewed. This is followed by discussion of a selection of the measures currently available which target aspects of children’s life in schools, and the advantages and drawbacks of using these in evaluation. Finally, I discuss why it might be advantageous to view school life from the perspective of children’s subjective well-being or ‘happiness’, and review evidence from experimental research, within a positive psychology framework, and particularly the ‘Broaden-and-Build’ Theory of Positive Emotions (Frederickson, 2005). Subsequently, the thematic network, created in Paper 1, was used with four focus groups of the original interviewees, to design items for an instrument to assess subjective satisfaction with school life; what makes them ‘happy’ and ‘ready-to-learn’ in school. The children were included in every step of the design, including; choosing and wording the items (guided by frequency data and the range of topics and themes identified in Study 1), choice of the rating system, instructions for completion and layout, and naming of the instrument (the ‘Ready-to-Learn’ Scale). Following piloting and minor modification, the ‘Ready-to-Learn’ Scale was administered to an opportunity sample of 344 children from the four participating schools over the summer term of 2011. Principal components analysis on the data generated a six factor solution, interpreted as six sub-scales: school competence (α = .81), social competence (α = .80), academic competence (α = .78), distress and discomfort in school (α = .68), environmental support for learning (α = .70), and acceptance and recognition by adults (α = .80), with an overall scale reliability, α = .92, and a 95% confidence interval of 17 (16.72). The scale now requires further validity checks and standardisation, but is offered as a useful instrument for initial engagement with children in this age group.

Youth Futures is a community-based intervention intended to improve post-secondary education (PSE) access rates among high school youth from low-income families, who tend to be under-represented in higher education (Berger, Motte, & Parkin, 2009; Norrie & Zhao, 2011). The bilingual (French and English) program spans seven months and consists of mentoring by university students, leadership training, workplace training and skill development activities, paid summer employment, and exposure to college and university settings. This thesis examined the outcomes of the Youth Futures program through three distinct studies. First, a quasi-experimental study was conducted to investigate short-term outcomes among program participants (N = 44, mean age of 16 years old at baseline) in comparison to a group of their peers (N = 40, mean age of 16 years old at baseline). Second, a qualitative study was conducted with a purposeful sample of program participants (N = 20, mean age of 17 years old) to explore their first-hand experiences through semi-structured, open-ended interviews. Third, program alumni (N = 79, mean age of 19 years old) were briefly interviewed via telephone to investigate longer-term outcomes, including employment experience and enrolment and persistence in PSE. Overall, no evidence was found to suggest that exposure to the Youth Futures program contributed to increased access to PSE among participants. Some characteristics of the Youth Futures sample recruited in the three studies raised questions about whether participants were at risk of not accessing PSE in the absence of the intervention (Berger et al., 2009; Childs, Finnie, & Mueller, 2015; Finnie, Childs, & Wismer, 2011). Findings indicated several program improvement strategies that may be useful in modifying the Youth Futures program to ensure that students in need of the intervention receive tailored programming and that the timing of the intervention is effective. Experts have called for a stronger evidence base in this area to facilitate sound decision-making about which potential program models to establish or expand and how to match students to the programs that best address their particular needs (Barnett et al., 2012; Brock, 2010; Le, Mariano, & Faxon-Mills, 2016; Shultz & Mueller 2006; Tierney & Hagedorn, 2007).

This thesis contributes to the area of Information and Communication for Development and emphases on bridging the digital divide between developed and developing society. Particularly, this project focuses on the empowerment of youth in resource poor community trough ICT training. This thesis conducts a one month field study in Kenya and applies case study method. The aim of the thesis is to evaluate the outcome of Craft Silicon Computer Training Bus project from two perspective, individual empowerment and economic empowerment. Then, practical suggestions are proposed for improvement. Individual empowerment refers to the students’ attitude and skills gained during the training. The economic empowerment indicates employment promotion in ICT-related industry. The case target is Craft Silicon Computer Training Bus project which provides ICT training to youth living in Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. The evaluation framework of this thesis combines the core indicators of computer training outcomes which proposed by Daniel A. W, et al and the pathway model which proposed by O’Donnell, et al. After the evaluation, practicing suggestions are provided to improve the training program regarding provide high quality training and promote employment opportunities simultaneously. Firstly, the result of this thesis could help Craft Silicon Foundation to recognize the pros and cons of this project and to improve the training. Secondly, the participants of the training could benefit from the improvement and achieve a better study result. Finally, other training programs could learn from the experience of Craft Silicon Computer Bus Project and improve their own programs.

No description available.

Middle-school students in Nova Scotia are perceived to have low self-efficacy for achieving learning outcomes. Strong self-efficacy beliefs developed through effective curricula have been linked to improved academic performance. However, there is a need for the formal evaluation of effective curricula that aim to improve self-efficacy. The purpose of this project study was to investigate a 10-week, after-school mentorship (ASM) curriculum that has never been evaluated. The outcomes of the curriculum design are to strengthen self-efficacy beliefs via relationship building exercises, public speaking training, and character education. Bandura's theory on self-efficacy, which states that treatment influences can alter the strength of self-efficacy, informed the conceptual framework. Evaluation questions explored apparent changes in the self-efficacy of the students from the perspective of 7 adult-caregivers and the program's instructor. Interview data were triangulated with quantitative descriptive statistics on the self-efficacy scores of 10 middle-grade students before and after program participation using the Children's Hope Scale. Comparison of the mean, median, and mode pre- and posttest scores did not show statistically significant differences in self-efficacy beliefs of the students. However, analysis of interview data revealed that children's self-efficacy beliefs grew, the largest increase being in those described as reserved at the beginning of the program. This study promotes positive social change through an increased understanding that can inform efforts to increase self-efficacy in middle-school students

The research aims to reveal (1) the indicators of the outcome, (2) the outcome of teacher education institution, and (3) related aspects of the outcome of teacher education institution. This study employed the quantitative approach and supported by qualitative approach. The population 1,558 graduates of the Faculty of Engineering, Yogyakarta State University from 2001 to 2010. The sampling technique used in this research was purposive sampling technique by taking the graduates who pursued the profession as a teacher at the vocational high school. The calculation of an adequate sample size was determined by Nomogram Harry King with an error rate of 5%. Based on Nomogram Harry King, the number of sample used was 296 people or 19% of the population. The results of this research are as follows. (1) The indicators used to reveal the outcome of education in LPTK include: work appraisal, work motivation, career development, competence in teaching-learning process, school administration, contribution to school development, creativity and innovation, subject-matter mastery, teaching media skill, teaching strategy skill, evaluation and assessment. (2) LPTK graduates are able to teach productive subject matter very well. The competence of: subject-matter mastery, teaching media, teaching strategy, as well as evaluation and assessment is categorized very good. Furthermore, the graduates carry out their duties in vocational high school very well. The ability to handle school administration and contribution to school development aspect are mostly categorized very good, while the creativity and innovation are mostly categorized good. Work motivation of the graduates is categorized very good, while the career development and work appraisal are mostly categorized good. The advantages possessed by LPTK graduates are subject-matter mastery and work motivation. (3) The evaluation results of related aspects of the outcomes show that: (a) the LPTK inputs on curriculum and educational staff aspect are mostly categorized very good, however student quality and facility should be improved; (b) the LPTK process including: teaching-learning process in the classroom, industrial internship, and educational practicum is categorized very good; (c) the LPTK output shows that GPA average is in the range of 3.01 to 3.25 and the length of study is in the range of 4.51 to 5 years.

TITLE: Evaluation of school-based prevention programme "Típni to I" AUTHOR: Marián Vanek DEPARTMENT: Department of Psychology SUPERVISOR: PhDr. Veronika Pavlas Martanová, Ph.D. ABSTRACT: This thesis deals with need assessment and formative outcome evaluation of school-based smoking prevention programme "Típni to I" which is designed for the pupils of 7th grade of elementary school. The main focus of evaluation was to obtain evidence of functional and nonfunctional parts of the programme with regards to needs of the target population and the KAB model. Combined qualitative-quantitative research design with participatory research paradigm was used. It is important to note that the author of the evaluation is at the same time member of the organization Česká koalice proti tabáku (ČKPT) which produces the evaluated programme. Self-made questionnaire, interviews with ČKPT lecturers and written products of the programme "Típni to I" were used to obtain empirical data. Questionnaire was assigned twice in experimental group (12 classes, 202 pupils), firstly before the programme implementation and then 2-3 weeks after realization of the prevention (pre-post design), no control group was used. Prevention programme proved to be effective in improving tobacco risks knowledge, communication skill to refuse cigarettes,...

Background: Mentoring is an intervention for implementing evidence into practice, but little is known about this intervention. The overall aim of this dissertation was to examine mentoring as a knowledge translation (KT) intervention to inform clinical practice. Methods: 1) A systematic review was used to determine the effectiveness of mentoring as a KT intervention. 2) An interpretive descriptive qualitative study was conducted to explore the use of mentoring in the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario’s Best Practice Guidelines Implementation/ Knowledge Transfer Fellowship program. Findings: 1) Of 10,669 citations from 1988 to 2012, 10 studies were eligible. Findings showed that mentoring alone (n = 1 study) improved one behavioral outcome. When mentoring was used as part of a multi-faceted intervention (n = 9), there were various effects on knowledge, beliefs/attitudes, use of research evidence in clinical practice, and the impacts on healthcare professionals, patients and organizations. 2) Qualitative interviews with 6 fellows, 8 mentors and 4 program leaders revealed that mentoring involved building relationships, establishing a learning plan, and using teaching and learning activities. Mentors were described as accessible, dedicated, and having expertise; fellows were described as dedicated, self-directed, and having mixed levels of expertise. Mentoring was described as positively impacting upon mentoring relationships, fellows, mentors, and organizations. Participants reported no negative outcomes. Conclusion: Mentoring was used as a KT intervention to support the implementation of evidence into clinical practice. The systematic review and qualitative study findings informed the Mentoring for Guideline Implementation model. Mentoring involved mentees selecting more experienced mentors who provided individualized support based on mentees’ learning needs, which resulted in mutual benefits for mentees and mentors. Future research is required to validate this new mentoring model, develop an instrument to measure the mentor-mentee relationship, and evaluate the effectiveness of mentoring as a KT intervention for guideline implementation in nursing.

Four years following the refugee crisis of 2015, Uppsala Stadsmission’s integration program “Mötesplatsen” begun its activity offering a ‘meeting place’ for unaccompanied young adults, who had received temporary residence according to the Swedish Upper Secondary School Act. The program offered individual support and guidance in their contact with the Swedish agencies, civic information, help in searching and applying for jobs and school homework assistance. The first aim of this study is to conduct an outcome evaluation, that is to assess whether and to what extent the intended outcomes of Mötesplatsen were achieved. The second aim is to identify the program’s underlying assumptions about how the program’s planned activities are thought to lead to the desired outcomes. The study is structured in accordance with evaluation theory and practice, making use of a logic model framework to identify Mötesplatsen’s program components, which in turn, is used to inform the outcome evaluation and the explication of the program’s underlying assumptions. The results of the study indicated that the services at Mötesplatsen had a positive effect on the conditions of the participants across most areas of receiving support. Participants reported improvements in their requirements to finding a job, did comparatively better in their educational pursuits, were assisted in legal/administrative questions or other questions, acquired civic information about the Swedish society and generally felt a sense of community throughout their involvement with the program. Overall, the progress observed in their individual conditions and prospects contributed to the empowerment of the participants across the areas which they sought help in. Furthermore, the results pointed towards assumptions mainly concerned with how the program’s planned activities are thought to produce the intended outcomes, showcasing the causal relationships between these components. / Fyra år efter flyktingkrisen 2015 startade Uppsala Stadsmissions integrationsprojekt Mötesplatsen sin verksamhet med att erbjuda en mötesplats för ensamkommande unga vuxna, som fått tillfälligt uppehållstillstånd enligt Gymnasielagen. Programmet erbjöd individuellt stöd och vägledning i deras kontakt med de svenska myndigheterna, samhällsinformation, hjälp med att söka och hitta jobb samt läxhjälp i skolan. Det första syftet med denna studie är att genomföra en utvärdering av utfall, det vill säga att bedöma om och i vilken utsträckning Mötesplatsens avsedda utfall uppnåddes. Det andra syftet är att identifiera programmets underliggande antaganden om hur programmets planerade aktiviteter anses leda till önskade resultat. Studien är uppbyggd i enlighet med utvärderingsteori och praktik, med hjälp av en logisk modellram för att identifiera Mötesplatsens programkomponenter, som i sin tur används för att informera utvärderingen och förklaringen av programmets underliggande antaganden. Resultaten av studien visade att tjänsterna på Mötesplatsen hade en positiv effekt på deltagarnas villkor inom de flesta stödområden. Deltagarna rapporterade förbättringar i sina förutsättningar för att hitta jobb, klarade sig jämförelsevis bättre i sin utbildning, fick hjälp i juridiska/administrativa frågor eller andra frågor, fick information om det svenska samhället och kände generellt en känsla av gemenskap under hela sitt engagemang i programmet. Sammantaget bidrog de framsteg i deras individuella villkor och framtidsutsikter till att deltagarna hade mer egenmakt inom de områden som de sökte hjälp inom. Dessutom pekade resultaten på de antaganden som främst handlade om hur programmets planerade aktiviteter tros ge de avsedda resultaten, vilka i sin tur visade orsakssambanden mellan dessa komponenter.