Purpose and Stick to Evaluation In Nursing Education
Whats Is Stick to the Evaluation Purpose
Evaluators should keep the main body of an evaluation report focused on information that fulfills the purpose for conducting the evaluation. The main aspects of how the evaluation was conducted and answers to questions asked should also be provided.
Use Data as Intended In Nursing Education
Evaluators should maintain consistency with current data when reporting and interpreting findings. A question not asked cannot be answered, and data not collected cannot be interpreted. For instance, if evaluators did not. measure or observe a teacher's performance, they should not draw conclusions about the adequacy of that performance.
Similarly, if the only measures of patient performance were those conducted in the hospital, the evaluators must not interpret successful inpatient performance as successful performance by the patient at home or at work.These examples might make what seem like obvious points, but conceptual leaps from the data collected to the conclusions drawn from those data are an all-too-common occurrence.
One suggestion that decreases the opportunity to over interpret data is to include evaluation results and interpretation of those results in separate sections of the report.A discussion of any limitations of the evaluation is an important part of the evaluation report. For example, if several patients were unable to complete a questionnaire because they could not understand it or because they were too tired, the report should say so.
Knowing that evaluation results do not include data from patients below a certain educational level or physical status can help the audience realize that they cannot make decisions about those patients based on the evaluation. Discussion of limitations also provides useful information for what not to do the next time a similar evaluation is conducted.
Evidence Patient Education and Data Evaluation
A recent search of the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) database using the keywords “evaluation,” “patient education,” and “nursing” identified 1,962 articles. When first conducted in 2007, this same search identified only 254 articles. When the time frame was changed to include only articles published prior to 1992 (the year when “evidence-based practice” first appeared in the literature), no relevant articles were found.
Considering that this search was limited to only those articles published in one database and in English, the findings are impressive. Clearly, a body of evidence related to evaluation exists and continues to grow.
One reason why a body of literature on evaluation has come into being is that journal review boards have accepted evaluation projects and internal evidence generated by such projects as important for publication. Many of the articles providing evidence on evaluation of patient and staff development education are not research articles that is, articles providing external evidence resulting from studies conducted to provide generalization results.
Practice based evidence from such projects should be considered carefully because patients in one setting may not respond in the same manner as would patients in another setting.As discussed earlier in this chapter, how- ever, practice based evidence is gaining in legitimacy as increased rigor is being used to plan and conduct evaluations.
Ammercan et al. (2014) argue for the important role of practice based research to provide the rigorous evidence essential for meeting the challenges of the 2001 Institute of Medicine report to improve the public's health.
Losby and colleagues (2015) describe the Enhanced Evaluability Assessment approach to public health program evaluation that includes pre-evaluation appraisal of a program's capacity and readiness for evaluation. evaluation of program effectiveness, and evaluation of dissemination of practice based evidence generated by the program. A notable shift over the past decade has been the increase in the number of evaluations conducted as evaluation research.
Conducting impact and program evaluations as re-search projects might be expected, given that these types of evaluation are already resource intensive and the increased rigor associated with research strengthens confidence in their results.
Process, content, and outcome evaluations also are more frequently conducted as research projects, however, underscoring the importance of evidence as a basis for making practical decisions. Sinclair, Kable, Levett Jones, and Booth (2016) conducted a systematic review of randomized clinical trials to determine the effectiveness of e-learning programs on health professionals' behavior and patient outcomes.
After screening articles initially identified for review, the authors found 12 process and outcome RCTs worthy of further appraisal and 7 articles worthy of inclusion in the final systematic review. This is just one example of the increase in level of rigor in evaluations of healthcare education.
Data Collection and Analysis In Nursing Education
Conducting evaluations in healthcare education involves gathering, summarizing, interpreting, and using data to determine the extent to which an educational activity is efficient, effective, and useful for those who participate in that activity as learners, teachers, or sponsors.
Five types of evaluation:
(1) process
(2) content
(3) outcome
(4) impact
(5) program evaluations
Each of these types focuses on a specific purpose, scope, and questions to be asked of an educational activity or program to meet the needs of those who ask for the evaluation or who can benefit from its results. Each type of evaluation also requires some level of available resources for the evaluation to be conducted.
The number and variety of evaluation models, designs, methods, and instruments are growing exponentially as the importance of evaluation becomes widely accepted in today's healthcare environment. Many guidelines, rules of thumb, suggestions, and examples were included in this chapter's discussion of how a nurse educator might go about selecting the most appropriate model, design, methods, and instruments for a certain type of evaluation.
The importance of evaluation as internal evidence has gained even greater momentum with the movement toward EBP. Perhaps the most important point to remember is this, each aspect of the evaluation process is important, but all these considerations are meaningful if the results of evaluation are not used to guide future action in planning and carrying out educational interventions.
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