Program Design & Evaluation Flashcards

Which element distinguishes an outcome from an output in a program's logic model?

Answer: Outputs represent activities delivered; outcomes represent changes in participants

Outputs are the direct products of activities (e.g., workshops held), while outcomes are the changes in knowledge, behavior, or conditions that result.

Cultural competence in program design requires nonprofits to:

Answer: Integrate the values, beliefs, and practices of target communities into program structure

Culturally competent design adapts program content, methods, and materials to be respectful and relevant to the specific community being served.

A nonprofit discovers mid-implementation that its program model is not generating expected outcomes. The most appropriate response is to:

Answer: Conduct a process evaluation to identify implementation gaps and adjust accordingly

A process evaluation examines how the program is being implemented, helping identify and correct gaps before they undermine outcomes.

Fidelity monitoring in program replication ensures that:

Answer: The program is delivered as originally designed to preserve effectiveness

Fidelity monitoring tracks whether core components of an evidence-based model are implemented as intended to replicate proven outcomes.

When prioritizing program goals for a limited-resource nonprofit, which framework most systematically weighs urgency against feasibility?

Answer: Decision matrix with weighted criteria

A weighted decision matrix scores each goal on multiple criteria (urgency, feasibility, impact) and multiplies by importance weights to produce an objective ranking.

Which evaluation stakeholder group is most often overlooked but holds the highest knowledge of program implementation realities?

Answer: Frontline program staff and participants

Frontline staff and participants experience the program daily and often hold critical practical insights that are missing from leadership-only evaluations.

A logic model's 'assumptions' box is important because it:

Answer: Makes explicit the conditions believed necessary for the program's theory to hold true

Stating assumptions makes transparent the contextual conditions or beliefs the program depends on, which is essential for evaluating why a program succeeded or failed.