Deck 7: Monitoring the Implementation and the Operation of Programs

Question 1

Program monitoring includes

A) an examination of a program's activities.
B) an assessment of the conceptual foundations of a program.
C) a correlation of the service received and the outcome achieved.
D) careful program planning.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Program implementation refers to

A) careful program planning.
B) the degree plans achieve the ends hoped for.
C) the degree plans are put into effect.
D) the degree the target population accepts the program.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

A study of the people actually served by a program often reveals that

A) they really do not need the program.
B) the staff members seldom understand their own programs.
C) they do not appreciate the service provided.
D) the staff members hold some inaccurate views about the population served.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Program monitoring

A) always involves complex data gathering and analysis.
B) can involve relatively simple observations or a complicated system.
C) seldom produces useful information.
D) is quite useful, but is seldom done.

Question 5

Program monitoring is carried out in order to

A) contribute to the basic research literature in psychology, sociology, or education.
B) do the most thorough job of evaluation possible.
C) describe what the programs might achieve if thoroughly implemented.
D) describe the essential elements of the program as implemented.

Question 6

When reporting information to stakeholders, it is crucial to remember that people

A) resist all new ideas.
B) often incorporate new information without recognizing that some of their beliefs had been incorrect.
C) tend to ignore any comments that are critical of the program.
D) eagerly seek information that can be used to improve programs.

Question 7

Social service agency records can be used in program evaluation; however,

A) agencies do not need program monitoring.
B) most service providers refuse to allow evaluators to use these records.
C) many agencies do not keep well-organized records.
D) few sets of records are of any use in program evaluation.

Question 8

When using agency records, the ____________ of the program participants must be ___________.

A) privacy; protected
B) individuality; retained
C) privacy; sacrificed
D) identity; revealed

Question 9

The information used to describe the program participants will be

A) about the same regardless of the type of program being described.
B) restricted to impersonal information.
C) based on the most easily obtained information.
D) determined by the type of program being described.

Question 10

Management information systems are implemented to

A) provide information to individual service providers to use with specific clients/students/patients.
B) reveal whether service is effective or ineffective.
C) root out ineffective staff members or build a case for firing them.
D) track the delivery of services to various groups of clients/students/patients.

Question 11

Management information systems will provide summarized feedback to service providers that is

A) unavailable from other sources.
B) useful in adjusting the service to individuals.
C) usually very threatening.
D) of use only to managers.

Question 12

Feedback on job performance given to individual staff members should usually include

A) specific information about the individual receiving the feedback but only group-level summary information about peers on the staff.
B) clearly labeled information on the work of each individual staff member in the immediate work area.
C) only summary information on all staff members.
D) general performance on the facility but no information on the staff's performance.

Question 13

Although an individual service provider may not want a supervisor to compare his/her performance to that of other service providers,

A) individual staff members should have no say in the matter.
B) such comparisons are made so that specific people can be selected for termination.
C) they can be assured that such comparisons have never been used in an unethical manner.
D) it is best to learn about problems while they can still be corrected.

Question 14

A management information system provides informational feedback; however,

A) such feedback should be withheld from the staff.
B) actions to effect improvements should be developed.
C) the threat of such feedback makes it impossible to use.
D) staff members should not even know that such information is being gathered.

Question 15

One problem in developing an information system is

A) the staff is usually too eager to work on the system.
B) comparing the work of individual staff members is unethical.
C) privacy of program participants is necessarily violated.
D) the information might duplicate information already gathered.

Question 16

When designing a management information system, evaluators are particularly concerned to satisfy the information needs of

A) the stakeholder group paying the evaluator.
B) all the crucial stakeholders.
C) the program participants.
D) residents of the community.

Question 17

By working with only one or two departments of an agency

A) an evaluator is likely to learn useful information about the information needs of the whole organization.
B) an evaluator will be able to design an information system that will meet the needs of all potential users.
C) an evaluator may design an information system seen as irrelevant by many people in the organization.
D) an evaluator can efficiently learn about the organization.

Question 18

In setting up an administrative monitoring system it is essential

A) that the most sophisticated program be used.
B) that the variables be measured without error.
C) that the selection of variables to measure does not motivate people to change their behaviors.
D) that the selection of variables represent the behaviors that are actually important to the purpose of the organization.

Question 19

The reasons for developing a management information system include

A) the efficient preparation of required reports.
B) satisfying the manager's curiosity.
C) keeping up with good facilities that have information systems.
D) having good case studies available to release to newspapers whenever a piece of damaging publicity appears.

Question 20

Without a management information system, it is likely that staff members will hold some mistaken beliefs about the types of clients or the problems clients have because some clients and problems are more easily remembered than others. When this happens, mistaken beliefs are often held. Judgment theorists call this tendency

A) the standard error of the mean.
B) the standard error of the estimate.
C) hindsight bias.
D) availability bias.

Question 21

The most appropriate type of computer program to use in developing a management information system is

A) a sophisticated statistical program.
B) a relational database program.
C) a word processing program.
D) a newly prepared program written especially for each facility.

Question 22

Describe the information that a high school principal should have in order to assist in scheduling classes for his school. Focus on the number of various classes needed; ignore state curricular requirements.

Question 23

What is some of the information that a district manager of a fast food chain might use to keep track of the restaurants in her district?

Question 24

Why should evaluators teach program managers and staff members about random variation in indexes of program operation? Think of indexes such as number of clients prematurely leaving a therapist in a given month, student ratings of a specific course in a semester, or percentage of a surgeon's patients developing infections in a four-week period.

Question 25

Develop some monitoring indexes that would require so much time to complete that staff members would probably refuse to keep the records regularly, but would be tempted to just fill them out from memory at some convenient time.

Question 26

What are the characteristics of monitoring indexes that would encourage staff members to keep and report accurate, timely information on work activities? How do such indexes differ from indexes that might prompt haphazard reporting practices?