Designing an Effective Evaluation Plan: A tool for understanding and planning evaluations for complex nursing contexts
Kenneth Walsh
Nursing Practice Development, South East Sydney and Illawarra Area Health Service; School of Nursing, Midwifery and Indigenous Health, University of Wollongong, Wollongong NSW, Australia
Jan Duke
Social Workers' Registration Board; Graduate School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
Maralyn Foureur
Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Health, University of Technology Sydney, Broadway NSW
Lesley Macdonald
Lecturer, School of Health, Waikato Institute of Technology, Hamilton, New Zealand
PP: 136
Abstract
With the increasing emphasis on the development of nursing, evidence based practice, practice development and new and extended nursing roles, nurses are faced with the challenge of developing effective evaluation practices in an increasingly complex health care environment. This complexity has seen a number of evaluation methodologies and methods used in health care and nurses in clinical settings may find it difficult to know what approach or approaches best apply to their context.
Given that evaluation of nursing innovations and interventions can have political, practical and fiscal consequences it is important that nurses have a broad understanding of evaluation, why it is important, the various types of evaluation methods and methodologies as well as some way of working through this complexity in order to develop evaluation plans and practices that best meet their needs.
This paper explores a number of common types of evaluation methodologies and aims to assist nurses to better understand the 'why' and the 'how' of evaluation. In addition the paper describes the development of an evaluation tool which aims to assist nurses to develop effective evaluation plans that will best meet their evaluation needs.
Keywords
evaluation, nursing, practice development, complex contexts
References
Aiken L, Sochalski J and Lake E (1997) Studying outcomes of organizational change in health services, Medical Care 35: 6-18.
Billings J (2000) Community Development: A critical review of approaches to evaluation, Journal of Advanced Nursing 32(2): 472-480.
Boog B (2003) The emancipatory character of action research, its history and the present state of the art, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 13: 426-438.
Carpenter M (2004) Book Reviews: Guba E and Lincoln Y: Fourth Generation Evaluation, Everitt A and Hardiker P: Evaluating for Good Practice, Pawson R and Tilley N: Realistic Evaluation, and Clarke A: Evaluation Research: An Introduction to Principles, Methods and Practices, Concepts and Transformation 9(3): 305-310.
Clarke A (2001) Evaluation research in nursing and health care, Nurse Researcher 8(3): 4-14.
Davidson C (2003) The mix of methods: common research techniques used in evaluation. In Lunt N, Davidson C and McKegg K (eds) Evaluating Policy and Practice: A New Zealander Reader, Pearson, Auckland.
Duignan P (2003) Approaches and terminology in programme and policy evaluation, in Lunt N Davidson C and McKegg K (eds) Evaluating Policy and Practice: A New Zealand Reader, Pearson, Auckland.
Everitt A and Hardiker P (1996) Evaluating for Good Practice, Palgrave, Basingstoke.
Fetterman D (2000) Empowerment Evaluation, Sage, Thousand Oaks.
Green J (2000) The role of theory in evidence-based health promotion practice, Health Education Research 15(2): 125-129.
Hall J (2004) Pluralistic Evaluation: a situational approach to service evaluation, Journal of Nursing Management 12: 22-27.
Koch T (1994) Beyond measurement: fourth-generation evaluation in nursing, Journal of Advanced Nursing 20: 1148-1155.
Lazenbatt A (2002) The Evaluation Handbook for Health Professionals, Routledge, London.
Lincoln Y and Guba E (1989) Fourth Generation Evaluation, Sage, Newbury Park.
Patton M (1997) Towards distinguishing empowerment evaluation and placing it in a larger context, Evaluation Practice 18(2): 147-163.
Pawson R and Tilley N (1997) Realistic Evaluation, Sage, London.
Scriven M (1997) Empowerment evaluation examined, Evaluation Practice 18(2): 165-175.
Sidani S, Doran D and Mitchell P (2004) A theory-driven approach to evaluating quality of nursing care, Journal of Nursing Scholarship 36(1): 60-65.
Sullivan H, Barnes M and Matka E (2002) Building collaborative capacity through theories of change: early lessons from the evaluation of Health Action Zones in England, Evaluation 8(2): 205-226.
Victora C, Habicht J-P and Bryce J (2004) Evidence based public health moving beyond randomised trials, American Journal of Public Health 94: 400-405.
Walsh K, Lawless J, Moss C and Allbon C (2005) The development of an engagement tool for practice development, Practice Development in Health Care 4(3): 124-130.
Warburton B and Black M (2002) Evaluating processes for evidence-based health care in the National Health Service, British Journal of Clinical Governance 7(3): 158-164.
Webster D, Vaughn K and Martinez R (1994) Introducing solution focused approaches to staff in inpatient psychiatric settings, Archives of Psychiatric Nursing 8(4): 254-261.
eContent Home
