Assessing Program Performance

Measuring Activities and Outputs: Process Evaluation

Once a program has identified its goals and objectives, it needs to specify the major activities or processes that it will undertake that will lead to accomplishing these goals and objectives. One component of measuring a program's performance is to determine whether activities were actually implemented as planned. The reason that this is important is that if activities are not implemented as planned, then there is no reason to believe that the activities as they were implemented will produce the desired objectives.

The immediate results of activities are referred to as outputs. Output measures are indicators of the degree to which activities were implemented as planned. Examples of output measures include:

Number of offenders receiving counseling services
Number of community service projects completed
Proportion of parolees who receive drug tests

Process evaluation focuses on program implementation. Process evaluations generally involve: reviewing program documents, interviewing program staff, observing program operations, and collecting data from program files. In addition to collecting data on output measures, process evaluations examine a number of additional questions; for example:

How well were key program elements, such as multiagency collaboration, implemented?
Did the program serve its target group (for example, high risk probationers)?
What was the dropout rate for the program, and how can this rate be reduced?

Assessing Program Performance

Measuring Activities and Outputs: Process Evaluation

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