Module 6: HIV Prevention Evaluation for Native Communities

Goal of Module 6: To provide an evaluation framework for your HIV prevention intervention program.

In order to provide an effective HIV prevention intervention for Native people, you will need to ensure that a solid, culturally relevant evaluation plan informs your program from beginning to end. Program evaluation can help determine whether your HIV prevention intervention program is accomplishing what it set out to accomplish. This module includes an overview of helpful cultural components that effect evaluation, hands-on considerations, evaluation steps and tools, and avenues to share lessons learned to help you build an effective evaluation for your HIV prevention intervention program.

Contents 3d Gather Credible Evidence

This module helps you to create and conduct evaluation of your HIV/AIDS prevention and intervention program.

It includes information on:

1.


Key Concepts to Guide Evaluation

2.
Hands-On Considerations
3.
Evaluation Steps

Now that you have defined the foundation of your evaluation—the goals and objectives, the logic model, and the evaluation design—the next step is to decide the method that will be used to collect the information to answer your questions.

You will collect two different kinds of information: qualitative data (narratives, stories, open-ended questions) and quantitative data (able to be counted). Qualitative methods are usually more expensive to administer and are subject to interviewer/interpreter bias. Quantitative data is more objective and easier to collect. The number of interviews and/or focus groups needed to provide accurate information is difficult to project. In other words, how many is enough? Once your information becomes repetitive, and you begin to hear the same thing from different individuals or groups, then you can stop.

EXAMPLES OF QUALITATIVE DATA COLLECTION METHODS:

  • Literature reviews: researching what others have discovered about the topic of interest.

  • Focus groups: 8-12 people with a common characteristic of interest to the project; questions are designed to get to perceptions, attitudes, community norms, etc.

  • Community interviews: interviews with community members designed to identify information that might not be commonly known about a specific topic.

  • Key informant interviews: interviews with community leaders or elders that have special knowledge or experience; these interviews provide information about how best to work with a community.

  • Observation: monitoring an event, presentation, or workshop with intent to provide useful insight into the quality of the event.

  • Games: these provide an active/interactive method for obtaining information about the usefulness of information delivered and how well skills were developed.

  • Storytelling: using a traditional Native practice to assess how well an audience understands training content; for example, making up different endings and asking participants to choose, or having participants make up their own story and ending (role-plays).

  • Talking Circles: a confidential way of finding out how many different individuals think or feel about a certain situation.

  • Case studies: these provide a means for role-play and observation to model desired behavior.

TYPES OF QUANTITATIVE DATE COLLECTION METHODS:

  • Administrative recordkeeping: reports on how many clients were served, how many locations were visited, how many community events were attended, the types of information distributed, etc.
    • Surveys: collect information on knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and/or behaviors (KABB)
    • Post-session assessments: completed at the conclusion of an activity
    • Pre-post tests: completed prior to and at the conclusion of an event; responses are compared to measure change
    • Information: collects data about perceptions, as in satisfaction survey

Asking Questions

You can develop a list of specific questions to help determine the best method of data collection for your program. For example, what kind of demographic information (age, race, etc.) do you need to know? What types of behaviors are you curious about? Will your community be sensitive about answering personal questions in a group? Do you need to know about current service utilization? Do you need to know about current behaviors? What about the impact of the program or intervention on behavior?

The list of questions should be inclusive and can be cut down later when working on the data collection instrument. For more information on selecting a method for getting the best participation possible, refer to Module 5: Conducting a Community Services Assessment.

Exercise - Asking Questions

  • What questions will you ask?
  • Who is the target population that will be asked the questions?
  • How many of them need to participate to provide adequate information?
  • How will the questions be asked?
  • What method, or combination or methods, will provide the best information?
  • Who will conduct the interviews, focus groups, Talking Circles, etc.?
  • What training will they need?
  • What is the budget?
  • Will you need incentives, childcare, or transportation for participants?