Linda Mabry

Postmodern Evaluation—or Not?

Postmodernism, once an obscure little cloud, has descended as a fog of disbelief and cynicism. Should evaluators change, worry, laugh, cry? The postmodern challenge to social science, particularly to program evaluation, and its potential contribution are the subject of vignettes from practice and a limited exploration, one that borrows occasionally from playfully absurdist postmodern style.

In Living Color: Qualitative Methods in Educational Evaluation

This is interview data collected in the course of studying an educational program in four Chicago schools partnered with neighborhood arts agencies. It is empirical data, but it is unlike test scores, costs per student, or graduation rates . It is vividlyexperiential, differently compelling. It is qualitative data.

Worksite wellness program implementation: a model of translational effectiveness

ABSTRACTOccupational health promotion programs with documented efficacy have not penetrated worksites. Establishing an implementation model would allow focusing on mediating aspects to enhance installation and use of evidence-based occupational wellness interventions. The purpose of the study was to implement an established wellness program in fire departments and define predictors of program exposure/dose to outcomes to define a cross-sectional model of translational effectiveness. The study is a prospective observational study among 12 NW fire departments. Data were collected before and following installation, and findings were used to conduct mediation analysis and develop a translational effectiveness model. Worker age was examined for its impact. Leadership, scheduling/competing demands, and tailoring were confirmed as model components, while organizational climate was not a factor. The established model fit data well (χ2(9) = 25.57, CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.03). Older firefighters, nearing retirement, appeared to have influences that both enhanced and hindered participation. Findings can inform implementation of worksite wellness in fire departments, and the prioritized influences and translational model can be validated and manipulated in these and other settings to more efficiently move health promotion science to service.

Orbiting the Big Dog

The 2011 Stauffer Symposium at the Claremont Colleges was intended to honor Michael Scriven for a half century of unflinching and unstinting leadership in evaluation. The Future of Evaluation in Society: A Tribute to Michael Scriven is the published record of this gathering. But, as editor Stewart Donaldson tells it, the guest of honor refused to attend until the spotlight turned to the future of evaluation. Scriven only partly succeeded in adjusting the focus: In this volume, the contributing authors extravagantly admire the title character before offering their visions of evaluation’s prospects. Under no obligation to recount his own contributions to a field that ‘‘gives us more to be humble about than to be impressed by’’ (p. 11), Scriven’s own chapter is a dazzling demonstration of his worthiness of the honor he tried to blunt. Both drawing together and expanding upon ideas developed over a prolific career, he offers a ‘‘cosmology of evaluation’’ (p. 15), its logical and epistemological nature, star wars and revolutions, and paradigm shifts—some still in process. No one acquainted with his work can be surprised that Scriven closes his own chapter by inviting ‘‘criticisms, constructive or not, and the chance to improve my arguments and conclusions’’ (p. 41). But the book’s co-contributors, rather than responding to the provocative view he articulates, acknowledge his vast and seminal body of work and sketch overlaps with their own efforts— connections, contributions, challenges, and disagreements honed over time.

Protecting workers in the home care industry: workers’ experienced job demands, resource gaps, and benefits following a socially supportive intervention

ABSTRACT The Community of Practice and Safety Support (COMPASS) program is a peer-led group intervention for home care workers. In a randomized controlled trial, COMPASS significantly improved workers’ professional support networks and safety and health behaviors. However, quantitative findings failed to capture workers’ complex emotional, physical, and social experiences with job demands, resource limitations, and the intervention itself. Therefore, we conducted qualitative follow-up interviews with a sample of participants (n = 28) in the program. Results provided examples of unique physical and psychological demands, revealed stressful resource limitations (e.g., safety equipment access), and elucidated COMPASS’s role as a valuable resource.