Focus on content with the following three categories (from the lowest to the highest quality):

1. Head Start program

Head Start is a program funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services. It focuses on preparing low-income, disadvantaged children to attend preschool, to help better prepare them for future educational endeavors. There has been a movement in Congress to reduce funding for this program, because studies have shown that the program is not achieving its intended outcomes. You work in the office of a member of Congress whose constituents are low-income and have received direct benefits through this program. You have been asked to service on a steering committee for an evaluation of a local Head Start project in your community. The intention of this evaluation is to provide your member of Congress with a tool to help buffer the criticisms of Head Start.

Create a logic model including all relevant aspects of your local Head Start program.

• Head Start and Early Head Start programs provide comprehensive services to support the mental, social, and emotional development of children from birth to age 5. In addition to education services, programs provide children and their families with health, nutrition, social, and other services. Head Start services are responsive to each child and family’s ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage.
• Head Start encourages the role of parents as their child’s first and most important teachers. Programs build relationships with families that support positive parent-child relationships, family well-being, and connections to peers and community. (http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ohs/about/head-start)

• Camp Great Outdoor

Camp Great Outdoors operates eleven summer camps that specialize in building the self-confidence of school-aged children (10-18) who have been the targets of school bullying.   The camps have three sessions over the summer that each last twenty-six days.   During that time, campers participate in activities that include: basketball, soccer, tennis, rock climbing, rappelling, cliff jumping, water skiing, and spelunking (caving).   These activities are carefully designed to build children’s independence and self-confidence.  However, some of these activities involve a level of danger, so safety is a primary concern of Camp Great Outdoors.  Its motto is “Safety first, safety last, and safety in-between.”

• In order to lower liability insurance and improve the less-than-desirable safety record of the camp due to accidents that occurred last summer, Camp Great Outdoors is looking to develop a performance monitoring system to track and prevent injuries. You must develop a performance monitoring system to track the reported injuries that result from its activities and prevent them from occurring.
• Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services

The congressional committee that funds Medicare is interested in the effectiveness of a new weight control medication that the Medicare program has begun covering. Of particular interest is the change in the health of recipients of the new drug after six months and after twelve months. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has retained you to conduct an evaluation of the medication.

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• 1. Pick a comparison group design that you would like to use and prepare a presentation to the congressional committee justifying your choice.
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• 2. Describe the data that you will need to complete your evaluation. You must describe specific measureable data. How will you get these data?
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• 3. Identify some of the threats to validity that might arise from the design of this evaluation and how you plan to overcome these threats.

Sample answer

The congressional committee that funds Medicare is interested in the effectiveness of a new weight control medication that the Medicare program has begun covering. Of particular interest is the change in the health of recipients of the new drug after six months and after twelve months. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has retained you to conduct an evaluation of the medication.

• 1. Pick a comparison group design that you would like to use and prepare a presentation to the congressional committee justifying your choice.

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