Chapter 10 Designing and Conducting Formative Evaluations Summary

A formative evaluation, evidence of an instructional program’s worth is gathered for use in making decisions about how to revise the program while it is being developed. This is why it is called "formative" evaluation, because the instruction is in its developmental stages and is not yet "grown up". The idea is to find out if your newly developed course works at teaching the objectives you need to teach to the learners who need to learn them, before you present it to your target audience. In any given formative evaluation, you can find out how to make your instruction more:

•      Effective

•      Efficient

•      Interesting/Motivating

•      Usable

•      Acceptable

You do this by carrying out procedures that will provide you with evidence as to the effectiveness of your instruction. The emphasis is on collecting data and revising the instruction.  Formative evaluation of instructional materials is conducted to determine the effectiveness of the materials and to revise them in areas where they are ineffective. Formative evaluations should be conducted on newly developed materials as well as existing materials that are selected based on the instructional strategy. Evaluations are necessary for both mediated and instructor presented materials. The evaluations should be designed to produce data to pinpoint specific areas where the instruction is faulty and to suggest how it should be revised. An iterative process of formative evaluation containing at least three cycles of data collection, analysis, and revision is recommended. Each cycle focuses on different aspects of quality. The first cycle, one- to-one evaluation, is conducted to pinpoint gross errors in the materials. These errors typically relate to both the clarity of vocabulary, concepts, and examples used, and the motivational value of all five components of the instructional materials. Evaluations can also be conducted with content experts and individuals familiar with the characteristics of target learners. One- to- one evaluations must be conducted with representatives of the target population. An interactive interview process is used so the evaluator can learn what was wrong with the materials and why it was wrong.