Post 12

Post 12

Nathan Scarbrough

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Chapter 16: Evidence Based Practice

               This chapter was a fitting compliment to both the last chapter I wrote my blog on (chapter 12), and the discussions we had in class last week.  My last blog and our discussions focused on how to implement an effective career-development program in schools to benefit children and adolescents of all ages.  One of the many important factors we considered was accountability, which is the focus of this whole chapter.

               Accountability is the system of evaluating processes, outcomes, and contributions of components to gather accountability data.  In simpler terms, it is how we, as future counselors, prove to the general public (and more importantly to stakeholders) that our program is doing a good job at implementing positive change, and that it is worth the money being put into it.  Accountability is necessary tool, for without it, our schools would still be hemorrhaging money to support useless programs (such as DARE). A previous blog I read mentioned that it is a harsh reality that as potential program developers, we constantly have to defend our work.  I think that it is not harsh at all, but a matter of realizing that we have a responsibility to prove the effectiveness of our methods to the people putting their faith and funds into our project in the first place.  Besides, accountability doesn’t just help us defend ourselves and our programs (to avoid having our programs cut), it helps us collect data so we know how to better improve our systems in place and lets us know when it would be appropriate to expand our programs.  In the face of shrinking school budgets, it essential now more than ever to make sure that no money is put to waste in the educational setting.

               Enough about why accountability is useful; how does one go about doing an evaluation? This text does a great job at explaining the options available to us, and pointing out why and when particular methods are or aren’t appropriate.  To begin, the experimental model is the “gold standard” for proving accountability.  That said, it is more often than not an unrealistic one to use in this setting.  Manipulation of variables is a critical part of the experimental model.  This is usually not possible in the school setting for obvious reasons.  That said, there are other options available to us, including other quantitative, and also qualitative designs.  Our books explains that quasi-experimental designs and surveys are the quantitative designs with the most utility in our field, and focus groups are the qualitative designs with the most utility in our field.  While quantitative designs are the most useful for evaluating programs based off of logical positivistic theories, qualitative designs are in turn most useful for evaluating programs based off of postmodern theories.  That said, it is important to realize that elements from each qualitative and quantitative methods can be used (called a mixed model).  This is ideal as each method makes up for the shortcomings inherent in other methods, therefore providing us with a more complete view of the effectiveness of our programs.