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The
Planning Steps
Step
5: Develop a Program Evaluation
You
and the company will want to be able to measure the effectiveness
of the literacy program. You will be evaluating the program
to measure how well it is accomplishing its goals and how effective
its operations are, and to make decisions about improving the
program.
What
should be evaluated?
The
content of the program evaluation is based on the goals set
for the program. Keep in mind that there are many audiences
for the evaluation- workers, tutors, management, union representatives
and your literacy organization. In planning the evaluation,
decide who needs to know what information and how that information
will be presented to each audience.
Decide
what needs to be known about areas like learner accomplishments,
tutor performance, the program's operations, literacy provider/company
relationship, communication process, and company satisfaction
with the program.
How
will the evaluation be done?
Evaluation
should be an ongoing process as well as something you do at
the end of the contract period. Some evaluation methods will
be the same as you use in your community literacy program; others
will be specific to the workplace program. You can use standardized
tests, Cloze tests, job-related tests using job materials and
skills, anecdotal records of learning sessions and job performance,
writing portfolios, and interviews with learners, tutors and
supervisors.
Who
will do the evaluation?
You
will need to determine who will conduct the various parts of
the evaluation: workplace literacy coordinator, workers/learners,
tutors/facilitators, company liaison, outside evaluator, or
a combination of these.
Workplace
Program Profiles
How
have other literacy organizations gone about starting a workplace
program? How successful have their efforts been over time? Four
actual workplace literacy programs are profiled in this section
to show you. As you read, you will see that workplace literacy
can take many forms to fulfill a variety of needs.
Please
note that the initial program descriptions are presented as
they were written 1991 (and, in one case, 1993). Following each
1991 program description is a 1996 update.
The
specific instructional series referred to by programs are published
by New Readers Press, the U.S. Publishing Division of Laubach
Literacy. These include the Laubach Way to Reading series, the
Laubach Way to English series, the Challenger Adult Reading Series,
and Breakthrough to math.
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