Practice Makes Better? Testing a Model for Training Program Evaluators in Situation Awareness

This study addressed that gap by examining the potential for one online training program, informed by research on deliberate practice, to accelerate evaluators’ progress towards expertise in situation awareness. Built to align with evidence on developing situation awareness skills, the EvalPractice portal combined (1) an extensive ‘case bank’ of real-world evaluation scenarios, (2) repetitive practice that allowed novice evaluators to practice interpreting these evaluation scenarios, and (3) immediate feedback on the accuracy of these efforts based on events from the real-life version of the scenario. Findings from a small EvalPractice pilot suggest that it may be possible to improve foundational situation awareness skills using deliberate practice, but that further research is required to understand strategies for building higher-level situation awareness skills in evaluation.
Source: Evaluation and Program Planning - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research