Deck 10: Evaluating Macro Practice

Question 1

A decrease in street shootings in a neighborhood after police begin patrolling the area daily is an example of:

A) Output
B) Outcome
C) Random sample
D) Reliability

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which of the following characterize(s) an experimental design?

A) Control group
B) Experimental group
C) Random assignment of subjects to control/experimental groups
D) All of the above

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The______measures the amount of variability of observations around a mean.

A) Mean
B) Median
C) Mode
D) Standard deviation

Answer 3

D

Question 4

A meta-analysis works best with which type of data?

A) Qualitative
B) Quantitative
C) Normative
D) Post-test

Question 5

The______tells us how often a problem or behavior occurred either at a specific point in time or during a specified period.

A) Baseline
B) Experimental design
C) Independent variable
D) Quasi-experimental design

Question 6

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program was used in the text as an example of what problem or barrier in program evaluation?

A) Failure to plan for evaluation
B) Evaluation results were unclear
C) Lack of program stability
D) Evaluation results were not accepted

Question 7

An instrument that measures what it is supposed to measure is considered:

A) Reliable
B) Stable
C) Valid
D) Statistically significant

Question 8

Summative evaluations usually occur:

A) Following an intervention
B) During an intervention
C) Prior to an intervention
D) All of the above

Question 9

__________methods are designed to learn the experiences of a particular group of people.

A) Quantitative
B) Qualitative
C) Empirical
D) Experimental

Question 10

______is a statistical procedure to compare the expected frequencies in a study to the observed frequencies.

A) Statistical significance
B) Inferential statistics
C) Chi-square test
D) Standard deviation

Question 11

A(n)______sample is one in which every member of a population has an equal chance of being selected for inclusion in the sample.

A) Spot
B) Comparative
C) Indiscriminate
D) Random

Question 12

If a new test can determine how good a social worker you will be three years from now, we say it has:

A) Statistical significance
B) Predictive validity
C) Measured reliability
D) Literary validity

Question 13

Social workers must often employ this type of design because we cannot randomly select who participates in our programs:

A) Baseline
B) Experimental design
C) Independent variable
D) Quasi-experimental design

Question 14

The______is that which we believe is likely to influence, cause, or contribute to a particular phenomenon.

A) Baseline
B) Experimental design
C) Independent variable
D) Quasi-experimental design

Question 15

__________ outcomes focus on changes in the client's quality of life.

A) Practice
B) Functional
C) Quantified

Question 16

All of the following are true regarding evaluation except :

A) Evaluation at the macro level was being utilized in the early 1900s.
B) Our ethical responsibility to our clients and to the organizations we serve requires us to ensure that we do not hurt them.
C) The ability to demonstrate the efficacy of our change efforts is fundamental to becoming an evidence-based profession.
D) Evaluation encompasses many levels; however, it doesn't always involve making judgments about what we are doing.

Question 17

This type of evaluation cannot be followed in practice because we are not able to randomly assign clients to groups:

A) Baseline
B) Experimental design
C) Independent variable
D) Quasi-experimental design

Question 18

All of the following are reasons why social workers use program evaluations to inform practice except that they:

A) Assure us that planned programs provide the services we intended
B) Identify side effects that were not intended or planned for
C) Allow us to spend our resources on unmet needs as we discover gaps among those being served
D) Assure our programs will be funded by interested financial resources

Question 19

In order to know whether gang violence is decreasing in a community (a goal of a multi-agency task force), we need a:

A) Chi-square test
B) Control group
C) Baseline
D) Experimental group

Question 20

measure the consequences of services provided.

A) Formative evaluations
B) Chi-square tests
C) Summative evaluations
D) Inferential statistics

Question 21

A survey of community residents' opinions conducted after church services at St. Catherine Cathedral would be
considered random.

Question 22

________ measure(s) general satisfaction with a service or with achievement of specific goals.

A) Client satisfaction surveys
B) Qualitative methods
C) Pretest/post-test designs
D) Goal attainment scaling

Question 23

The variable we seek to change (such as child abuse) is also known as the independent variable.

Question 24

Weekly reports completed for all clients served by an agency would be part of a:

A) Feedback system
B) Evaluation design
C) One-group post-haste design
D) All of the above

Question 25

To determine whether clients are satisfied with the quality of services given by an agency, we would most likely employ what type of evaluation method?

A) Goal attainment scaling
B) Pre-test/post-test design
C) Random post-haste design
D) None of the above

Question 26

Program evaluations build support for continuing effective programs.

Question 27

Regarding ethics and values in social work evaluation, all of the following are true except :

A) Any person volunteering should know the risks associated with volunteering.
B) Sometimes the clients need not understand the purpose of a service being provided.
C) The privacy of participation should be zealously protected.
D) Clients must give permission before audio- or videotaping contact with them.

Question 28

__________ is ( are) sometimes called A-B design

A) Qualitative methods
B) Pretest/posttest designs
C) Goal attainment scaling
D) Target problem scaling

Question 29

A brief synopsis of the most significant findings of an evaluation is contained in the:

A) Executive summary
B) Literature review section
C) Introduction section
D) All of the above

Question 30

It is often very difficult to use a true experimental design in evaluating the success of human service programs.

Question 31

A description of the evaluation design used and the data collection system employed would appear in the______  section of an evaluation report.

A) Introduction
B) Results
C) Methodology
D) All of the above

Question 32

The essential questions to ask about all of our interventions are "Do they work?" and "How do we know?"

Question 33

In the data gathering stage in an evaluation of a macro intervention, which of the following may be good sources of data?

A) Family and friends
B) Case records
C) Archives and public records
D) All of the above

Question 34

A retrospective baseline may be possible even though actual data was not recorded.

Question 35

A baseline is a measurement of the original incidence of a problem prior to an intervention.

Question 36

The limitations of an evaluation effort would normally be contained in the __________ section of a final evaluation report.

A) Discussion
B) Results
C) Introduction
D) Methods

Question 37

A drug treatment program that selects only the most promising candidates to be evaluated is an example of:

A) Maturation
B) Creaming
C) Deciduation
D) Systematic random sampling

Question 38

Evaluation always comes down to making judgments about what we are doing.

Question 39

The evaluation approach used to monitor the progress of individual clients and then to aggregate the data on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis is titled:

A) Qualitative methods
B) Pretest/posttest designs
C) Goal attainment scaling
D) Target problem scaling

Question 40

If you wished to determine whether students acquired new knowledge about the effects of drug usage as a result of participating in a new education program, which design would be most useful?

A) One-group post-test design
B) Pre-test/post-test design
C) Random post-haste design
D) Goal attainment design

Question 41

Regression analysis determines how much of a change is due to the event under our control and how much to other factors.

Question 42

An evaluation based upon incidents of drug-related arrests in a community is a qualitative study.

Question 43

A well-executed evaluation of a program is a guarantee that the results will produce useful information.

Question 44

A formative evaluation is undertaken during the implementation stage of a program.

Question 45

Experimental designs are used most often in actual practice.

Question 46

Previous research completed on your type of program would best be described in the methodology section of your report.

Question 47

Generally, we try to gather data from the entire population because it is the only way to be reasonably certain of our findings.

Question 48

Functional outcomes are those that can be observed by either the client system or by the social worker.

Question 49

A client satisfaction survey would be most useful for measuring the success of a program designed to keep adolescents from engaging in delinquent behavior.

Question 50

A quality assurance review is an evaluation that identifies patterns of problems with the outcomes of service delivery and then corrects the problem.

Question 51

Quantitative methods rely on nonnumerical examination of phenomena.

Question 52

Determining whether we will gather data on number of clients served or hours of output by workers is part of the measurement stage of designing an evaluation.

Question 53

It is generally better to construct your own questionnaires and surveys than to use existing instruments.

Question 54

To ensure that a sample contains an appropriate percentage of people of color, we might use a stratified random sample.

Question 55

Selecting only the most promising candidates for a new delinquency-prevention program is called maturation.

Question 56

Data sources gathered in an evaluation are largely aimed at determining whether changes have taken place in individual program participants.

Question 57

The goal of pie charts and graphs is always clarity.

Question 58

The chi-square statistical test might be used to compare the ethnic breakdown of a sample to that found in the actual population.

Question 59

A reliable instrument for measuring students' knowledge about the effects of drugs should produce different results
each time a student completes the survey.

Question 60

Pie charts are always the most appropriate graphic used to compare expected and actual study results.

Question 61

Discuss ways in which evaluation research has previously been used at the macro level, as far back as the early 1900s.

Question 62

Client permission is needed before letting a third party observe sessions.

Question 63

What would you include in the literature review and the methodology of your data presentation section of a final evaluation report?

Question 64

Describe three problems or barriers to the evaluation of social work programs

Question 65

What ethical guidelines should you consider when attempting to evaluate the effectiveness of a new program?

Question 66

A written report of the summary of your data requires more use of graphics than might be required for a public presentation.

Question 67

Mark Lipschitz is leading a group-based education program to reduce drug abuse among children in the Peabody Heights Middle School. Identify the dependent variable and independent variable. What information would you need to help Mark determine if his program is a success?