IDENTIFYING MONITORING QUESTIONS (EVALUATION OBJECTIVES)
Monitoring questions are more specific questions that can be answered through data collection. For example, you may want to ask:
"Did the day respite service reduce burden in carers?"
You can also think of monitoring questions as the objectives of the evaluation. Objectives should serve the overall goal, but are realistic and achievable. Objectives usually describe actions such as 'plan', 'write' or 'analyse'. An example of the above monitoring question rewritten as an objective is:
"To measure the change in carer burden for users of the day respite service."
For evaluation objectives to be useful, they need to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-framed.
Remember, clear evaluation and monitoring questions are needed to generate useful data - do NOT leap straight into data collection without considering what the questions you want to answer are.
Optional activity: Developing evaluation goals and objectives
- Specific - specify the how, where and where of your objective.
- Measurable - how will you know you are progressing towards your goal?
- Achievable - what resources and skills are available to you?
- Relevant - is the objective relevant to the stated goals?
- Time-framed - when will these objectives be achieved?
Remember, clear evaluation and monitoring questions are needed to generate useful data - do NOT leap straight into data collection without considering what the questions you want to answer are.
Optional activity: Developing evaluation goals and objectives