STI in Teenagers in the State of Hawaii: Impact Evaluation Paper Example

A project evaluation is critical irrespective of the other factors that relate to the same like the size, type and the duration that it took for it to be designed. Evaluation provides a basis through which it can be critiqued to establish any weaknesses or developments that may arise for it to be changed to address them. An assessment also goes further than that and determines the value of the given project in the presence of others offering the end users a choice. They can hence use the objectives, and the points set out using the analysis to choose or carry out improvements on what they have with them. This evaluation program will handle the question of whether the program increased the knowledge of the teenagers in the state of Hawaii about prophylactics and prevention.

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The project "STI in teenagers in the State of Hawaii" will have an evaluation that is formative which will focus on several areas from the time that data gets gathered to the end of it. It will also address the measurements and the data collected before and in the course of the project implementation. These will include the materials, methods, procedures and other activities surrounding the project. Besides, it will also look at the systems and programs to control, and assure the recipients of improvements in its quality and performance.

There are different types of evaluations depending on its timing of the project itself. The assessment gets determined by the time that it gets performed regarding the three parts of it being the conception, design and the last part of it. The three primary types are planning, formative and summative. For the project in question, the formative one has been selected which usually goes hand in hand with the development of the project from its inception to its end. Parts of the project are taken on a prototype basis and tested with the intended recipients. It implies that depending on their views then the ones developing it will need to react to them and make changes according to avoids the costs incurred when it is complete, and it has to be overhauled (McKenzie, Neiger & Thackeray, 2017). Although the result is reflective of what the recipients had wanted and it meets its intended objectives, it can be costly when it comes to the time that it takes to accommodate these changes. The participants whose views are taken into account do not need to know technical details of the project. They do not even need to be brief about its expectations, but all they need to find out is if the project is addressing their issues. The other forms of evaluation are more beneficial to a different category of people with the planning one assisting the would-be designers and developers and the summative one intended for the ones who are going to fund a project.

The question for the evaluation is whether the program increased the knowledge of the teenagers in the state of Hawaii about prophylactics and prevention. Since it had been discovered that there was a high prevalence of STIs in the given country, there was the need to look for means through which this could be reduced. It had various drastic effects ion the population and the system in the form of time, funds and the expenses that are associated with the losses incurred. There had been a high rate of infection with the youth who ended up utilizing time seeking treatment and staying at home while getting treated. There was the commitment of funds for their treatment and the allocation of funds to the personnel who were dealing with them. They also lost the time that they could have been in class or attending to other activities as they were either bedridden or at home during treatment. The question was focusing on the teenagers at the center of the objectives of the project. It was working on the understanding that despite the other stakeholders in respect of the problems affecting the youth for this one they were the ones who were to play a critical role in addressing the situation. There was an assumption that they may not be aware of what they needed to do and the measures that they were to take for the problem at hand. From the project, there were discoveries that a majority of them were not aware of the medical interventions and the prevention steps that they were to undertake to avert these STIs. Hence the primary basis for the evaluation was whether the teenagers were finally equipped with the knowledge of the step that they needed to take in being treated or preventing the spread of STIs.

Different evaluation designs are depending on what the one carrying out the process would like to achieve. The model may also be determined by the circumstances presented by the project in question. Some of these evaluation designs are experimental, quasi-experimental and the non-experimental one. Richmond et al. (2008) observe that experimental design will rely on having different types of scenario and gauging how the system will react. It may be taken to the ground for selecting a group and the project implemented on them on an experimental basis to assess the result to be found. The experimental design evaluation happens to be the best format that one can take because there is an opportunity to use random data or take an extreme situation and make observations on what will happen (Holbrook & Chen, 2017). However, critics of this form of evaluation oppose it based on the legal and ethical challenges that it poses for any given project. The quasi-experimental is different from experimental because it will show results expected before and after. For this one there will be two groups that will be selected where one will be the control, and the other is the one that will receive the treatment. After some time the two groups will be observed for changes, in this case, the changes for the second group will be attributed to the treatment even if other factors were responsible for the same. With non-experimental evaluation, there will be no variables or relationships to be observed and may be useful for specific situations especially when the research question is about a single variable with the absence of a statistical correlation. There are situations where the independent variable is not subject to any forms of manipulations.

The choice for the evaluation will be quasi-experimental where there will be two groups with one being exposed to the knowledge that is required of them, and the other one will have the status quo is sustained. The control group will be left alone and have their lives without any form of interruption or intervention. That is to say that they will be engaging in illicit sex and other ills associated with sexual misconduct. Also, they are not going to be aware of the treatment modes that are there for the ones who contract STIs. They will be exposed to all forms of STIs and their effects on their lives, their studies and that of the community around. The other group will be taught about STIs and their impact on their lives (Odendaal et al., 2016). They will be equipped with skills on the need to be seeking treatment when they contract them. They will further get information on the expectations that will keep them from contracting these STIs. Hence they will know how they will be controlling themselves concerning their behaviors and the need to use various contraceptives for the prevention of STIs and unwanted pregnancies. At the end of a defined period, data will be collected to gauge the differences between the two groups. From this, the impact of the experiment on the community can be assessed having observed what took place when the two groups' results were evaluated at the end of the experimental period.

There are various evaluations designs which come with their strengths and weaknesses. This will explain why the ones concerned will have to choose which one to use depending on their circumstances or compelling factors driving them to one specific one. In this case, there was the choice of the quasi-experimental evaluation design which deals with two groups for the process to be completed. The advantages of this design process are numerous compared to the genuinely experimental and the non-experimental. It is easier to set up since there are no strict conditions that are required to be set up and manipulated concerning the outcome so desired. There will not be issues of the unethical or impractical ideas that would have been the case when the experimental design is used. This design also minimizes the threats that are associated with the changes that may have to be implemented in the environment. There will not be the costs associated with having a situation required for the evaluation to proceed. The ones in charge of the valuation do not have to subject the participants or the surrounding to any form of manipulations as it works by taking things as they are (Reddy et al., 2015). These manipulations are expected to happen on their own forming the basis of having different groups with their specific differences to the other groups. It is also possible to select several groups with various manipulations giving rise to many groups with some unique circumstances. Since the groups have their self-selected environment, the question of blaming the organizers for ethical and other conditional terms does not arise.

Some of the disadvantages are due to the simplicity of the quasi-setup itself. Since the organizers rely on the environment or the surrounding as it is, then it will be difficult to assess the role of contaminators. There are cases where external factors that cannot be measured may have a more significant impact on the results than the obvious ones. According to Tackett et al. (2016), since most of these factors are hidden, they cannot also be controlled to achieve the desired results especially if they are regarded as a hindrance to the evaluation process. The lack of a random may easily present a situation where the study groups present evidence that is much weaker. There is a high likelihood that the groups selected in this form of evaluation are different non-uniform groups presenting a threat to the internal viability of the data or information used.

There needs to be a method to be used in collecting data to be used for the evaluation question. One way of doing this will be breaking down the evaluation question into smaller parts such that as they are answered then, in essence, the overall question will be addressed. An observation method can be used for the case above where data and results will be resourced. Also, it will be prudent to identify the group members whose information will be taken and observed over the duration of the experiment. Since it is a quasi-experiment evaluation, it will be prudent that they do not get to know what kind of information the organizers are looking for. That means that there will be questionnaires to capture information that will be then gathered and put in tables for further analysis (McKenzie et al., 2017). The data in the tables can then be evaluated by using spreadsheet programs by producing bar or line graphs which can then be used in comparing the different groups. It will be easy to compare the means of the various groups based on some questions to see whether they will be higher or lower and interprets this using the different hypothesis formulated.

Conclusion

There will be some modifications necessary to part of the existing records for assessment and to provide the rationale required for the evaluation. With the permission of the relevant departments, information from health facilities can be gathered from them that will give the records on the number of young people seeking treatment. Richmond et al. (2008) argue that their past and current records in the duration of the project evaluation can tell whether there are any significant ch...