|
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Short Term Humanitarian Trips to Another Country
|
| Presenter(s):
|
| Christi Delgatty, Texas State University, delgatty@yahoo.com
|
| Abstract:
It is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of short term humanitarian trips. Rarely is a trip reported as ineffective, and even when goals are unmet, trips are often praised for the effort and willingness of the volunteers. This project involved gathering data from trip participants concerning how they evaluate the effectiveness of their involvement in these short term trips. I used qualitative in-depth interviews focused on work done in Cameroon in addition to my personal experience to create a quantitative survey to assess how volunteers evaluate the effectiveness of their short term trips to other countries. This project is the initial phase of gathering several layers of data that will be used to make informed recommendations to organizations of several ways they can improve the effectiveness of their short term humanitarian trips.
|
|
Complexities of the Transition Framework: A Case Study of a Civic Education Export
|
| Presenter(s):
|
| Natalia Glebova, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, nglebova@educ.umass.edu
|
| Abstract:
This case study evaluates a project designed and implemented during the past decade to expose Russian educators to US ‘exemplary curricula’ in civic education and by that to ‘assist democratic transition’ and ‘change in knowledge and value’. Based on interviews as well as personal knowledge, I analyze how the goals of the program as formulated in its funding documents and interpreted by the receiving side were complicated by the goals and expectations of the recipients. I address the following questions: What did Russian educators actually learn from the program? What did participants perceive to be the program’s contribution to their democratic transition? In what ways did the program logic support or hinder effective implementation? In short, I find that the products (interpreted and adapted courses that built on the ‘exemplary curricula’) contained messages radically different from the intended: civic education became patriotic education with the emphasis on nation-building values and goals.
|
|
The Effect of Translation on Evaluation Instruments: Multiple Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA) and Multiple Indicators, Multiple Causes (MIMIC) Models Outcomes
|
| Presenter(s):
|
| Fatma Ayyad, Western Michigan University, fattmah@hotmail.com
|
| Brooks Applegate, Western Michigan University, brooks.applegate@wmich.edu
|
| Abstract:
A fundamental prerequisite to the use of translated survey in multinational studies is the reproduction of the conceptual model underlying its scoring and interpretation. Structural equation modeling combined with multiple group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) and multiple indicators, multiple causes (MIMIC) was used to test these aspects of the construct validity of the Belief in Personal Control Scale (BPCS) in the USA and two Arabic countries: Saudi Arabia and Palestine. A forward translation, blind-back translations, and expert evaluation of equivalence by bilingual and English peaking experts were conducted to achieve conceptual equivalence between the original and translated instruments. Data came from Participants included college students because they are more likely bilingual. Empirical validation of the BPCS from a group of bilingual Arabic demonstrated a comparable item scale, means, and variances. Advantages and difficulties of using multi-cultural, multi-method to establish translation equivalence and to validate the translated instruments are discussed.
|
| | |