evaluative instruments
How can we design or improve our financial education program? Is our program increasing the financial stability of participants? How can we attract resources to maintain or enhance our program?
To answer these questions, providers use instruments that evaluate the impact of financial education. Information culled from the use of evaluative instruments will help develop programs that ensure the most effective outcomes.
A comprehensive pre-test evaluation
, given on the first day of class, captures a participant's baseline practices and reveals the competencies that an instructor should emphasize in the remaining sessions. An initial intake or assessment, prior to class, can provide pre-test information that helps place participants in the most appropriate class and helps instructors prepare. As part of each class, most agencies provide at least one session of individual financial counseling. This session often focuses on goal setting and developing a plan to reach those goals.
A post-test evaluation upon class completion can measure behavior change. To measure knowledge gained, some curricula are packaged with pre- and post-tests. However, few measure the impact of the education on a participant's practices and decision-making.
Roughly three to six months after a class is over, follow-up evaluations help participants stay on track and overcome the myriad of obstacles that arise over time. Follow-up creates positive and sustainable outcomes, and provides valuable information for program development.
The following Evaluative Instruments include a sample pre-test, post-test, and follow-up evaluation for financial education programs. The outcomes measured go beyond knowledge gained to get an understanding of participant's learned behaviors, practices, and comfort levels. The measurements relate to the basic Core Competencies listed in a previous section of this Toolkit.
The sample instruments were developed and customized using a database offered by the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE). This resource is available to the public and can be customized to meet agency and participant needs.
These sample instruments are meant to be downloaded and used as is. If you have any questions about the sample instruments, please contact info@supportunitedway.org.
And of course, the NEFE toolkit is available online, in order to develop your own evaluative instruments using the NEFE database.
To use the NEFE Online Toolkit, go to www2.nefe.org/eval.