In a response to "Youth as Evaluators for Service-Learning and Character Education" in the January edition of Keeping in PACE, there has been some interest in specific “how tos” related to evaluation and assessment.  It is clear that teachers and students are receiving increasing pressure to evaluate, but they need support in adding this task to their many other responsibilities.  While evaluation is the one responsibility most often pushed to the side, it should be considered before any program implementation. 
 
Basic evaluation plans should help to address the following questions:
Was the purpose of the program accomplished?
Did the program operate as planned?
What outcomes were achieved?
 
Teachers and students should discuss and come up with additional questions that they feel are interesting and important to their project.  The types of questions may also be shaped by the “audience” to whom the report is given.   Are the results to be given to community leaders, community funders or parents.  Each may be looking for different information.
 
There are many program evaluation methods to use, such as pre-post tests, logs or tally sheets, rubrics, performance ratings, interviews, surveys and focus groups.  For specific information about any of these methods, use the Evaluation Toolbox at http://www.projectstar.org/star/Library_senior/Toolkit.  It is a helpful resource for developing any type of evaluation process.
 
A helpful on-line tool for you and your students to use to design and conduct surveys is at http://www.zoomerang.com/. Zoomerang helps students create surveys that will help them design and evaluate their service work. It has templates that you can use, so that you don’t have to start from scratch.  Your survey results are kept private so only the researchers can access them.  Respondents can answer the questions at their convenience, and they can be customized to be related to your work.  You and your students can conduct various statistical computations with the data.  It also has a great deal of background on the survey process and how to design a meaningful survey. 
 
You’ll begin receiving feedback immediately after deploying your survey, since the results are tabulated in real time. All responses are presented in a variety of powerful graphic overlays to facilitate analysis and understanding of the feedback. If you’re looking to conduct in-depth analysis of results, the site  offers an upgrade package. The basic survey tools are free!