| Course | PHLT 8044 Advanced Program Evaluation |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 11 |
| Paper type | Evaluation plan |
| Length | About 1,150 words, 7 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | PhD in Public Health |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PHLT 8044 Week 11
Evaluation Plan for the Second Year of a State School Water Access Program: What It Will Learn, When, What the Program Could Do With Each Answer, and a Check Against the Program Evaluation Standards
Student Name
Walden University
PHLT 8044: Advanced Program Evaluation
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Evaluation Plan for the Second Year of a State School Water Access Program: What It Will Learn, When, What the Program Could Do With Each Answer, and a Check Against the Program Evaluation Standards
Summary for the Sponsor
Year one met its advance success criterion: compared with schools awaiting stations, schools with them saw sugary drink sales at lunch drop by roughly 13%. It left three questions open: whether the effect lasts, whether students make up the reduction outside school, and whether station placement explains why some schools changed and others did not. This plan proposes a second-year evaluation to answer those questions in time for the next budget decision, at a cost of about 9% of the program's annual budget. For each question it states what will be learned, when, and what the program could do with each possible answer. A final section checks the plan against the five groups of the Program Evaluation Standards (Yarbrough et al., 2011).
Program Background
The program combines refill stations with filters, a bottle for each student and an autumn campaign promoting water. Thirty schools received stations last year; the 40 waiting-list schools will receive them this fall, which ends the comparison group the first-year design relied on. The plan therefore changes design for the second year, as described below.
Evaluation Questions, Answers and Uses
Table 1
Second-Year Questions, When They Will Be Answered and What Each Answer Would Change
| Question | Answered by | If yes | If no | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Does the purchase reduction in the first 30 schools persist into a second year? | June, from sales data | Supports a long-term program; strengthens the case for expansion statewide | Suggests novelty effects; points to annual promotion or redesign | |
| Do students in program schools reduce whole-day sugary drink intake, not just school purchases? | June, from an expanded previous-day recall | Supports claims about diet and, eventually, health | Indicates compensation; program effect limited to school setting | |
| Do schools that move a station within 50 feet of the cafeteria see larger reductions? | May, from a planned relocation in 10 schools | Placement standard becomes a program requirement | Placement is not the explanation; look elsewhere for differences | |
| Is the effect in the 40 new schools similar to the first cohort's? | June, from staggered comparison | Effect generalizes beyond early adopters | Early cohort may have been more motivated; temper expectations | |
| Can BMI data agreements be secured in enough districts to study weight later? | March, from negotiations | A future weight evaluation becomes feasible | Weight remains outside what the program can show | |
Note. Timing is set so that findings reach the program director and budget office before the biennial budget request is finalized in July.
Design for the Second Year
Persistence will be assessed by extending the first cohort's sales series into a second year and comparing it with their first-year level and with the pre-installation trend. Because the waiting-list schools now receive stations, the new cohort's effect will be estimated with a staggered difference-in-differences design that uses the first cohort, already in its second year, and the new cohort's own pre-installation data, an approach suited to programs adopted at different times when its assumptions are checked (Wing et al., 2018). Placement will be tested directly: in 10 first-cohort schools where stations sit far from the cafeteria, the program will relocate or add one station near the cafeteria entrance at midyear, and purchases before and after relocation will be compared with those in similar schools where placement does not change. Whole-day intake will be measured with the previous-day recall in 40 schools rather than 24, which narrows the confidence interval that left the first-year result inconclusive.
Measures and Data
The primary measure remains cafeteria sugary drink servings per enrolled student per week, reported with and without flavored milk. Secondary measures include whole-day sugary drink servings from the recall, station meter counts and maintenance records. Data sources and agreements carry over from the first year, with new agreements needed only for the expanded recall sample and for any district willing to share de-identified BMI screening data.
Analysis and Decision Rules
As in the first year, the analysis plan will be registered before second-year data are opened (Nosek et al., 2018). Persistence will be judged against a pre-stated threshold: the second-year reduction should be at least two-thirds of the first-year reduction. The placement test will use the same 10% threshold for a meaningful effect. Whole-day intake will be judged on whether its confidence interval excludes zero. These rules will be agreed with the program director and budget office before data collection begins.
Timeline and Resources
Agreements and registration will be completed by September; relocation in the 10 placement schools will occur in January; recall surveys will run in October and May; sales data will be extracted monthly; findings will be delivered in June. The budget covers an evaluator at half time, a field coordinator at three-quarters time during survey months, survey printing and entry, travel for site visits and relocation costs for the 10 stations, together about 9% of the program's annual budget.
Check Against the Program Evaluation Standards
The Program Evaluation Standards group their criteria under utility, feasibility, propriety, accuracy and evaluation accountability (Yarbrough et al., 2011).
Utility
Every question maps to a choice the program must make, and results land before the budget request is written. The program director and budget office helped set the decision rules, which increases the likelihood that results will be used (Patton, 2008).
Feasibility
The plan relies mainly on records the program and districts already keep, adds one survey round of moderate size and schedules collection around the school calendar.
Propriety
The recall survey collects no names, uses family opt-out notice and takes under ten minutes. Relocating stations in 10 schools is a program improvement, not a withholding of service, and those schools' principals have agreed to it.
Accuracy
The design uses comparison data for every effect claim, the analysis plan is registered in advance and decision rules are fixed before data are seen. The plan states its limits, including that whole-day intake is self-reported and that weight is not judged.
Evaluation Accountability
The evaluation will keep a record of every analytic decision, publish the registered plan and the full results, and invite an external reviewer to comment on the draft report. These steps respond to the standards' call for evaluations to document and review their own quality.
Limits
The second year still cannot answer the question that first motivated the program, whether it helps students maintain a healthy weight; it can only establish whether the data agreements needed for that question are attainable. The placement test is small and not randomized, so its results will be suggestive rather than definitive. And because all schools in the comparison now receive stations, the second-year estimates depend more heavily on modeling assumptions than the first year's did, which the report will state plainly (Shadish et al., 2002).
References
Nosek, B. A., Ebersole, C. R., DeHaven, A. C., & Mellor, D. T. (2018). The preregistration revolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(11), 2600-2606. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708274114
Patton, M. Q. (2008). Utilization-focused evaluation (4th ed.). SAGE.
Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Houghton Mifflin.
Wing, C., Simon, K., & Bello-Gomez, R. A. (2018). Designing difference in difference studies: Best practices for public health policy research. Annual Review of Public Health, 39, 453-469. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-040617-013507
Yarbrough, D. B., Shulha, L. M., Hopson, R. K., & Caruthers, F. A. (2011). The program evaluation standards: A guide for evaluators and evaluation users (3rd ed.). SAGE.
Reading the PHLT 8044 Week 11 instructions
The final assignment usually asks for a complete evaluation plan that a sponsor could fund, drawing on the term's earlier products. Faculty expect the plan to be organized around the sponsor's needs: what the evaluation will learn, when results will arrive and how each possible answer would be used. Questions, design, measures, data, analysis and decision rules, timeline and resources should all appear, revised to fit together rather than pasted from earlier weeks. A check against recognized standards, such as the Program Evaluation Standards, shows the plan has been reviewed for usefulness, feasibility, propriety, accuracy and accountability. The plan should state its limits plainly. Where earlier results exist, the plan should build on them and explain how the design must change.
Inside the PHLT 8044 Week 11 example
A summary reports the first-year finding, names three open questions and states the cost. A background section explains that waiting-list schools now receive stations, ending the original comparison. A five-row table lists second-year questions on persistence, whole-day intake, placement, generalization to the new cohort and BMI data agreements, with when each will be answered and what each answer would change. A design section describes the staggered comparison, a midyear relocation test and the expanded recall. Measures, data, analysis rules, timeline and resources follow in short sections. A standards section takes utility, feasibility, propriety, accuracy and accountability in turn, naming a specific feature for each, and a limits section closes the plan.
PHLT 8044 Week 11 rubric: what earns full marks
The plan is judged as a proposal a sponsor could act on. Credit drops when the plan feels assembled from old assignments rather than built for one purpose. Graders look for questions tied to decisions, a table showing what each answer would change, and a design that adapts to the program's new circumstances rather than repeating the first year's. Decision rules set in advance and a realistic timeline aligned with the budget cycle are rewarded. The standards check earns credit when every standard is matched to a concrete element of the plan rather than cited in passing. Limits should be stated honestly, including what the evaluation still cannot answer. Clear organization for a funder audience and accurate citation of evaluation literature complete the expected standard.
Common PHLT 8044 Week 11 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Evaluation plans often describe methods without saying why a sponsor should pay for them. Start with what the evaluation will learn and how each answer would be used. Adapt the design to the program's current situation. Fix decision rules in advance. Time results to the decisions they serve. Check the plan against the evaluation standards, one feature at a time. State plainly what it still cannot answer. Give the sponsor a short summary that could stand alone if nothing else were read. Proposals to other sponsors benefit from the same learn-when-use organization.
Get a PHLT 8044 Week 11 example written to your instructions
Gather whatever the term has produced so far, evaluability assessment onward, and send it with the Week 11 prompt and rubric; the plan binds them into one document. It reaches you within 24-48h; nothing is billed for a first request. Sponsor names, budgets and agreements from a real setting stay out and appear as labeled placeholders.
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PHLT 8044 Week 11 questions, answered
Is the evaluation plan just the weekly pieces stapled together?
It should not be. Each earlier piece answered one part of the evaluation; the plan shows them working together and timed to the sponsor's decisions. It trims each piece, unifies terminology and adds what no single week produced: a decision calendar, ethics and agreements, budget categories and a standards audit. Pasting the weeks in sequence would miss the integration that this deliverable grades.
Why audit the plan against the Program Evaluation Standards?
Because the standards give a sponsor a recognized way to ask whether a plan will be useful, doable, ethical and accurate. The sample rates each attribute with evidence and concedes where the plan falls short. A plan claiming to meet everything fully reads as unexamined, and the audit is most persuasive precisely where it admits a gap.
Where can I find a free PHLT 8044 Week 11 sample paper?
The complete Week 11 evaluation plan is on this page, proposing a second-year evaluation of a school water program with a decision-use table, a staggered design and a standards check.
Why does the second year need a different design?
The waiting-list schools receive stations this fall, so the original comparison group disappears. A staggered difference-in-differences uses each cohort's own pre-installation data and the timing of adoption instead.
What goes in the resources section?
Staff roles and their time, survey and travel costs, and any program changes the evaluation requires, such as relocating stations in the placement test, described in categories with an overall share of the program budget.