Evaluation

4-H Science programs provide opportunities for young people to learn science content, improve their science reasoning abilities, develop positive attitudes toward science, and contribute through applied participation.

Evaluations can provide important information about 4-H Science programming, including whether or not, or to what degree outcomes have been achieved; areas necessary for program improvement; and to demonstrate to funders the value of a particular program.

Formative evaluations are primarily concerned with process and how well a program worked, and the information gained is typically used to feed back into program improvements. Summative evaluations focus on the outcomes of the program; for example, they might attempt to determine what skills the young people learned.

Examples and Tools

Individual Assessment

Project/Program	Tool/Instrument	Assessed Domains	Final Product/Report
California 4-H Statewide Evaluation	Science Grades 4-7		2015 - Lewis & Worker - Examination of attitude and interest measures for 4-H science evaluation
	Science Grades 8-12
	Views about Science Grades 4-12
Children, Youth, and Families At-Risk (science, gardening, and the environment)	CYFAR Youth Survey Paper Version 5-8-2014	Attitudes	Cumulative 5-Year Final Report for the 2009-2014 CYFAR Project CYFAR - Poster for PD Event 6-9-2014 CYFAR - UC Delivers
	CYFAR - Draw-a-Scientist-Test REVISED 4-22-2014	Attitudes
Film Production Workshops (for youth)	Film - Video Production Workshop Evaluation Form	Knowledge, Skills, Attitude	Film - UC Delivers
4-H Junk Drawer Robotics Curriculum (and workshops)	JDR - Junk Drawer Robotics 2013 Youth Evaluation	Knowledge, Skills, Attitude, Contribution	JDR - Junk Drawer Robotics 2013 Evaluation Report FINAL
	JDR - Junk Drawer Robotics 2013 Adult Project Leaders WORKSHOP Evaluation	Knowledge, Skills
	JDR - Junk Drawer Robotics 2013 Adult Project Leader Evaluation POST	Knowledge, Skills
There's No New Water! Curriculum	TNNW - Evaluation Instrument_5-26-10_final	Knowledge	TNNW - 2012 - Smith et al. - 4-H boosts youth scientific literacy with ANR water education curriculum TNNW - Poster for 2010 NAE4-HA TNNW - UC Delivers

Formative Curriculum Evaluation (Pilot Testing)

Curriculum	Tool/Instrument	Final Product/Report
4-H Junk Drawer Robotics	Student Curriculum Feedback Survey Final	4-H JDR Poster for 2012 ITEEA_final 2012 - Junk Drawer Robotics Curriculum
	Adult Curriculum Feedback Survey Final2
There's No New Water!	TNNW - Formative Evaluation_Participants
	TNNW - Formative Evaluation_Interns

National 4-H Common Measures 2.0

The National 4-H Common Measures instruments are designed to assess the impacts of 4-H programs in science, healthy living, citizenship, college/career readiness, and universal positive youth development. Please note that the tools are approved for use with 4-H youth programs only. 4-H staff and volunteers are encouraged to use the instruments to evaluate the impacts of your local program to make data-driven programming decisions and report program impacts to local stakeholders. https://4-h.org/professionals/common-measures/#!common-measures-2-0

4-H Common Measures 2.0: General User’s Guide and Protocol

4-H Common Measures 2.0 Reference Table

CM-2.0-Full-Survey-Science

CM-2.0-Core-Survey-Science-5.24.17

Full Surveys contain the Core and Supplemental questions for each Content Block. Items highlighted in yellow indicate Core questions for each Content Block; these items should not be deleted from the content block (remove highlighting before distributing survey). Non-highlighted questions represent supplemental questions which can be deleted one by one from each content block as needed.

Children, Youth, and Families At-Risk (CYFAR) Science Common Measure

CYFAR Common Measures- Science (Middle & HS)
(Middle and High School)
This 23-item instrument measures attitudes toward math and science and self-perception of ability in the scientific inquiry process. Combines the interest in science scale from the Mathematics and Science Attitudes Survey (Paciorek, 1997) and the competency in science scale from the Science Process Skills Inventory (Arnold & Bourdeau, 2009). More information

CYFAR Common Measures- Science (Elementary)
(Grades 3-5)
This 13-item instrument measures and assesses attitudes toward science. More information.

Database of Science Evaluation Tools

Assessment Tools in Informal Science (ATIS)

This is a searchable website of assessment tools for informal science learning. The goal is to provide practitioners, evaluators, researchers and policy makers with the information to choose appropriate tools for assessing program quality and outcomes for children and youth. Supported by the Noyce Foundation, PEAR (Program in Education, Afterschool and Resiliency), located at Mclean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, reviewed existing tools and published the findings in a report titled Toward a Systematic Evidence-Base for Science in Out-of-School Time: The Role of Assessment.