MPH503, Infertility and Public Health, Mod 3 SLP - Essay Example

MPH 503 Infertility and Public Health Mod 3 SLP Evaluation of Continuing Education There are many ways to evaluate continuing education program to determine whether or not the program has been effective. The controversy comes in what the definition of effective is. If the definition is that the participants got the information that was meant for them to get by objective it is not difficult to evaluate but if the definition is, can they put it into practice, there is a larger problem. This paper will discuss what is necessary in the usual evaluation of a continuing education program and whether there may be a way to evaluate practice.

Our designated program was meant for primary care providers and the objectives were as follows:The participant will be able to determine infertility problems from diagnostic examThe participant will understand the psychological issue related to infertilityThe participant will understand the physical issues and how they affect the patient psychologicallyThe participant will be able to describe hormonal treatment, fertility drug use, IVP, and ERPThe participant will understand the type of financial issues involved in this treatment The first question has to be, "were the objectives met?

" The way to know the answer to that is to post test the participants. It can be assured from evaluating what was in the program, whether or not it met all the standards but the only way to know for sure that the information was absorbed is to in some way ask, and a post test answers those questions. Secondly, it is needed to know whether or not the instructors established a rapport with the audience (Griscli & Jacono, 2007). This can be known early by assigning someone to watch the reaction of the audience during the education.

If the speaker does not engage the audience, they will not appreciate and learn the material involved. This is also very important in participant satisfaction. Other things that need to be determined are participant satisfaction, whether the participant felt that the objectives were met, and participant relevance. These thing can be best determined by a survey given to the participants at the end of the program asking questions directly related to this (Chambers, 2008). It is a good idea to not give the credit for attendance until the test and survey are completed.

This will give you better information. The one item that is difficult to evaluate is "are they able to take this information back to their units and put it into practice?" Leaders are finding this to be the most difficult answer to get. There are some ideas, such as having supervisors evaluate the use of the information or evaluating practice to determine if the newer ideas have been added. Any of these things are quite difficult and quite controversial at this time, however. This leads us to the recommendation that there be more concentrated study on how to insure that educational programs are used as well as learned.

Though our program has traditional objectives, there may be a need to change how those objectives are written (buinesstraining) and how they are evaluated. In conclusion, evaluation of educational program objectives is pretty traditional, as we have noted in our methods listed. However, this may be completing missing the point of education in the first place and there is a need to assure that we look more closely at what all this means in terms of the best use of our educational time and effort.

Referencesbusinesstraining.com. http://www.businesstraining.com/training programevaluation.htm.Chambers M. (2008). Quality control: evaluating education programs. Retrieved from http://www.mcaspecc.com/all articles.php?action=view& id=30.Griscli O, Jacona J. (2007). Effectiveness of continuing education programs in nursing literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing 55(4) 449-456.