A Formative Evaluation with Extension Educators: Exploring Implementation Approaches Using Web-based Methods

摘要

The article describes the formative evaluation of a bullying prevention programcalled Be SAFE from the perspective of Extension educators. Twelve regionaland county educators from Family and Child Development and 4-H YouthDevelopment participated in our study. We used a web-based, mixed methodsapproach, utilizing both Qualtrics, an online survey software platform, andScopia, a video conferencing application, to collect survey data and do a focusgroup. The results of the survey show that three activities, Clear Mind, MudMind, Take a Stand, and The Relationship Continuum, were perceived asgarnering the most participation from students. However, focus group dataindicated that while there was often a high level of participation, the subjectmatter of the curriculum was too advanced for students in the fifth grade and thatclassroom size affected how well educators could teach lessons. Furthermore,school access was not an implementation challenge, but the amount of daysavailable to implement the full curriculum was sometimes limited. The datacollected through this formative evaluation were used to improve implementationefforts. The process outlined in this article can be used as a model to helpprogram leaders who are interested in using web-based tools to evaluateimplementation processes.