ASSESSING META-EVALUATION IN PRACTICE: APPLICATION OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE STANDARDS TO FINAL EVALUATIONS OF TRADITIONAL BIRTH ATTENDANTS (TBAS) IN FOUR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.
Contributors: University of Pittsburgh.
Published: 1990
Number of pages: 190
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Public Health.
Description: Maternal mortality is a major problem in many developing countries. Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) play an important role in women's reproductive health. Evaluation of TBA training is essential. Meta-evaluation, which is the assessment of worth and merit of an evaluation, is also essential for identifying the strengths and weaknesses of an evaluation.

The rationale of this study was threefold: (1) to assess the quality of four final evaluation reports in four developing countries, namely: India, Sierra Leone, Burma and Ghana using the 30 Joint Committee Standards (JCS), 1981; (2) to measure the degree of agreement or disagreement among panel members; and (3) to examine the utility and applicability of the JCS in health care practice. Stufflebeam's summative meta-evaluation model which is the overall retro-active assessment of evaluation studies was used.

A panel of four members was chosen to examine the four TBA final evaluation reports. Data collection procedures included the use of the JCS checklist (1981) and an adapted version of Ridings Matrix (1982).

It was found that the extent to which the standards were met varied extensively across studies and that none of them met all the 30 standards. In addition it was found that the highest agreed upon study by panel members was the Ghana study and the least agreed upon was the Burma study. Further findings revealed that most of the standards were applicable in developing countries except for the Propriety Standards.

Conclusions reached included: (1) meta-evaluation is a reliable method for assessing the soundness and technical adequacy of the evaluation studies; (2) the JCS are a good means of assessing the quality of evaluation studies; (3) the quality of TBA final evaluation reports needs to be improved; (4) most of the JCS were applicable to the final TBA evaluation studies except for the Propriety Standards; (5) the addition of a fourth column in the JCS checklist needs to be added since it may render different ratings by meta-evaluators.

Recommendations for further research are also included in the study.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-02, Section: B, page: 0752.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, 1990.

School code: 0178.