What do we mean by refining the intervention? ___Refining the intervention is the process of making your work more effective by using evaluation information ___Key reflection questions include: What are we seeing? What does it mean? What are the implications for improvement? Why should you use your evaluation research to refine the intervention? ___Understanding and improving your work is one of the main purposes of evaluation When should you refine the intervention? ___Throughout the life of an intervention or program ___When it’s clear that what you’re doing isn’t working ___When participants are dropping out at a high rate ___Between sessions of a time-limited or sequential program ___When funders or participants ask you to adjust some aspect(s) of your program ___When funding or other resources are reduced ___When the goal or issue changes character Who should be involved in refining the intervention? ___Participants ___Staff members, paid or volunteer ___People who are directly or indirectly involved in implementing or supporting your work ___Those who led and participated in the evaluation How do you refine an intervention based on research? ___Determine whether your process – the planning, set-up and implementation of the program – went as planned ___Determine whether your program had the desired impact on the behaviors and risk and protective factors you targeted ___If there was no impact, or only a partial impact (or a negative impact), that could affect the program’s outcomes ___Determine whether your program achieved its desired outcomes ___If the program achieved its desired outcomes, consider how you can expand and strengthen the areas that worked well, and make the program more efficient and effective ___If the program failed to achieve the desired outcomes, work backwards – “but why” – to find where the problems lie ___If the program failed to have the intended impact on the targeted behaviors and risk and protective factors, that could explain the fact that you didn’t meet your outcome goals ___If the program had the intended impact on the targeted behaviors and factors, but failed to achieve the desired outcomes, you may have targeted the wrong behaviors or factors ___If some or all of the process was different from what was planned, that might affect the program’s impact on the targeted factors ___If the planning process or reasoning was faulty, it could result in targeting the wrong factors, or in using ineffective methods that target the right factors ___Once you’ve determined where and how to make adjustments and done it, repeat the evaluation and refinement cycle for the life of the intervention
