Interviews To fully understand Get full range and depth of Can be time intensive and someone’s impressions or information costly experiences, or learn more Develop relationships with Can be hard to analyze about their answers to participants and compare questionnaires Can be flexible with Interview can bias participants participants’ responses Focus groups To explore a in depth Quickly and reliably get Participants can influence through group discussion, common and disparate each other’s responses e.g., about reactions to an impressions Can be hard to analyze experience or suggestion, Can be efficient way to get responses understanding common both breadth and depth of Need good facilitator complaints, etc… information in a short time Difficult to schedule 6-8 Can convey key information people together about programs Can be time consuming and expensive Observations To gather accurate View operations of a Can be difficult to information about how a program as they are interpret seen behaviors program actually operates, actually occurring Can be complex to particularly about processes Can adapt to events as they categorize observations occur Observer can influence behaviors of program participants Can be time consuming and expensive Case studies To understand or depict Fully depicts participants’ Usually quite time participants’ experiences in a experience in program consuming and expensive program, and conduct input, process, and results to collect, organize, and comprehensive examination Powerful to portray describe through cross comparison of program to outsiders Represents depth of cases information rather than breadth Figure 2. Putting It All Together Checklist Designing Your Program Notes Problem Statement Resources/Inputs Strategies/Activities Outputs
Interviews To fully understand someone’s impressions or experiences, or learn more about their answers to questionnaires Get full range and depth of information Develop relationships with participants Can be flexible with participants Can be time intensive and costly Can be hard to analyze and compare Interview can bias participants’ responses Focus groups To explore a in depth through group discussion, e.g., about reactions to an experience or suggestion, understanding common complaints, etc… Quickly and reliably get common and disparate impressions Can be efficient way to get both breadth and depth of information in a short time Can convey key information about programs Participants can influence each other’s responses Can be hard to analyze responses Need good facilitator Difficult to schedule 6-8 people together Can be time consuming and expensive Observations To gather accurate information about how a program actually operates, particularly about processes View operations of a program as they are actually occurring Can adapt to events as they occur Can be difficult to interpret seen behaviors Can be complex to categorize observations Observer can influence behaviors of program participants Can be time consuming and expensive Case studies To understand or depict participants’ experiences in a program, and conduct comprehensive examination through cross comparison of cases Fully depicts participants’ experience in program input, process, and results Powerful to portray program to outsiders Usually quite time consuming and expensive to collect, organize, and describe Represents depth of information rather than breadth Figure 2. Putting It All Together Checklist Designing Your Program Notes Problem Statement Resources/Inputs Strategies/Activities Outputs