Deck 12: Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation

Question 1

What would a minority impact statement tell us about a potential policy alternative?

Answer 1

It would inform us whether this alternative has the potential to differentially impact minority groups.

Question 2

What type of work is forward-looking and helps us solve anticipated problems?

Answer 2

Policy analysis

Question 3

What type of evaluation helps understand whether we have theory failure or implementation failure in a program that is not working?

Answer 3

Process evaluation

Question 4

How does a black box evaluation differ from a clear box?

Question 5

Why would a one-group before-after design be less desirable for a program evaluation?

Question 6

Why is feedback critical when evaluating policies and programs?

Question 7

Which of the following is the broadest?

A) Policy
B) Program
C) Project
D) Objective

Question 8

Which of the following is a type of program evaluation?

A) Content analysis
B) Process evaluation
C) Unit of analysis
D) Evaluability analysis

Question 9

In the classic system model used to explain policy development, ______ hopefully lead to desirable outcomes or impacts?

A) Input
B) Activities
C) Outputs
D) Alternatives

Question 10

In the system model of policy development, we must generate ____________ and then consider whether changes are necessary.

A) Activities
B) Input
C) Outputs
D) Feedback

Question 11

Sam works with an agency to observe a program as it is being implemented. She compares the current implementation procedures to what the agency wrote on their proposal to see if they are handling implementation properly. Sam is currently doing a ____________.

A) Process evaluation
B) Outcome evaluation
C) Policy analysis
D) Ex ante evaluation

Question 12

Tanya was asked to study a court-ordered anger management program to see if participants are less likely to recidivate than a similar group of students who do not participate in anger management. In this situation, Tanya is doing a ____________.

A) Process evaluation
B) Outcome evaluation
C) Policy analysis
D) Ex ante evaluation

Question 13

Rueben is on a committee tasked with making a recommendation to the county about what to do with inmates. The jail is 100% full, and the committee needs to decide whether to build a new jail, expand the existing one, or recommend making more use of community corrections alternatives. In this case, Rueben and his colleagues are doing a _______________.

A) Process evaluation
B) Outcome evaluation
C) Policy analysis
D) Impact evaluation

Question 14

What type of evaluation would allow researchers to get some information about how the program was implemented?

A) Black box evaluation
B) Gray box evaluation
C) Clear box evaluation
D) Evaluability assessment

Question 15

Researchers who are unsure if they should evaluate a program might want to do a(n) ______ first.

A) Black box evaluation
B) Gray box evaluation
C) Clear box evaluation
D) Evaluability assessment

Question 16

After a systematic review, there is evidence that _________, a technique that involves analysis of crime locations and extra attention given to those areas is an effective policing practice.

A) Reactive policing
B) Intelligence-led policing
C) Hotspots policing
D) Combative policing

Question 17

The ________ is an organization that encourages the production of systematic reviews so we can learn what works in criminal justice.

A) Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences
B) American Society of Criminology
C) The Campbell Collaboration
D) National Institute of Justice

Question 18

Policy analysis and program evaluation are types of what kind of research?

A) Exploratory research
B) Explanatory research
C) Applied research
D) Longitudinal research

Question 19

If, when evaluating a program, you find you did everything correctly but the outcome was negative, you have what is called ____________________.

A) Implementation failure
B) Theory failure
C) Outcome failure
D) Program failure

Question 20

Policy analysis is an evaluation of a program to find whether it is producing the desired outcomes.

Question 21

Program evaluation occurs after a program has been running for some time.

Question 22

Process evaluations inform us about whether the program produced desirable outcomes.

Question 23

If a program is found to have theory failure, the program should be discarded.

Question 24

A program that is implemented as intended is known to have high treatment integrity.

Question 25

Researchers are always free to publish their findings from outcome evaluations.

Question 26

The National Institute of Justice publishes user-friendly booklets on effective policing tactics called COPS.

Question 27

Researchers' main goal is to discover whether policies and programs work, not the reasons for their successes or failures.

Question 28

How is unplanned change potentially dangerous? Under what conditions can even planned change be problematic?

Question 29

What are theory failure and implementation failure? Why are process evaluation important tools in understanding them?

Question 30

How does the researcher's need to work with a criminal justice agency potentially complicate an evaluation?
Why is program evaluation important in the field of criminal justice?

Question 31

A(n) ____________ helps us determine the extent to which our new program is producing the desired outcomes.

Question 32

____________ are whatever we do with the inputs for our new policy or program.

Question 33

___________are the result of program or policy activities.

Question 34

_____________ refers to how resilient a proposed policy would be when faced with poor implementation.

Question 35

If a process evaluation reveals that the program was not implemented as planned, this is an example of ___________ failure.

Question 36

If formative evaluations are conducted while the program is still being implemented to provide feedback for improvement, a (n)__________ evaluation is conducted later to study outcomes.