Health Education Evaluation

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Abstract
A major disappointment with educational evaluative research in general, and health education evaluation in particular, is all too often outcome of "no significant differ ence" or "no effect." Reviewing the evaluation literature one finds experienced investigators such as Donald Campbell, Marcia Guttentag, and Carol Weiss lamenting the fact that educational programs persistently fail to uncover statistical differences . This problem continues to plague evaluators whose experiential evidence indicates that the program may have produced some very desirable results. Thus, the traditional methods of evaluation are increas ingly being called into question. Evaluators are presenting theories to explain the "no effects" phenomenon and alternate methodologies are being proposed in the literature. This article suggests that health educators not only acknowledge the existence of this dilemma, but develop a working knowledge of alternate or qualitative data methodologies , theirpossibilities, and their limitations, thus encouraging the evalua tion of those health programs which have traditionally been classified as undoable.

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