Integrated programming is a coordinated Extension approach to address multi-faceted community issues. An integrated Extension approach is needed to address complex community issues in a meaningful way. Planning, implementation, and evaluation of an integrated program should be considered as a joint effort by the partnering Extension agents. This article describes how to document the impacts of integrated Extension program to reflect the coordinated effort of the Extension team. Documentation as well as sharing impacts with the partners is necessary to strengthen the collaboration and sustain the integrated Extension programming effort

Bradley, Lucy K.

Driscoll, Elizabeth

Jayaratne, Jay S

English

Clemson University: TigerPrints

The Journal of Extension Volume 47 Number 3 Article 18 6-2009 Impact Evaluation of Integrated Extension Programs: Lessons Learned from the Community Gardening Program Jay S. Jayaratne North Carolina State University, jay_jayaratne@ncsu.edu Lucy K. Bradley North Carolina State University, lucy_bradley@ncsu.edu Elizabeth Driscoll North Carolina State University, Liz_Driscoll@ncsu.edu This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Jayaratne, J. S., Bradley, L. K., & Driscoll, E. (2009). Impact Evaluation of Integrated Extension Programs: Lessons Learned from the Community Gardening Program. The Journal of Extension, 47(3), Article 18. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/joe/vol47/iss3/18 This Tools of the Trade is brought to you for free and open access by the Conferences at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Journal of Extension by an authorized editor of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact kokeefe@clemson.edu. June 2009Volume 47 Number 3Article Number 3TOT3Return to Current IssueImpact Evaluation of Integrated ExtensionPrograms: Lessons Learned from the CommunityGardening ProgramK. S. U. JayaratneState Leader for Program Evaluation and Assistant ProfessorDepartment of Agricultural and Extension Educationjay_jayaratne@ncsu.eduLucy K. BradleyAssistant ProfessorDepartment of Horticultural Sciencelucy_bradley@ncsu.eduElizabeth A. DriscollExtension AssociateDepartment of Horticultural Scienceliz_driscoll@ncsu.eduNorth Carolina State UniversityRaleigh, North CarolinaAbstract: Integrated programming is a coordinated Extension approach to address multi-faceted communityissues. An integrated Extension approach is needed to address complex community issues in a meaningfulway. Planning, implementation, and evaluation of an integrated program should be considered as a jointeffort by the partnering Extension agents. This article describes how to document the impacts of integratedExtension program to reflect the coordinated effort of the Extension team. Documentation as well as sharingimpacts with the partners is necessary to strengthen the collaboration and sustain the integrated Extensionprogramming effort.IntroductionIt is becoming clear that an integrated Extension approach is needed to address multi-faceted communityissues effectively. For example, obesity is a significant issue in the U.S. (CDC, 2008). The obesity issuecannot be addressed by focusing solely on nutrition education. It is important to understand and influence theother factors related to this problem in order to effectively support sustainable change. These factors mayinclude limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables, limited resources available to buy healthy foods, andlimited opportunity to do exercise. By integrating efforts across different program areas, Extension will beable to address real-life community issues effectively.Impact Evaluation of Integrated Extension Programs: Lessons Learned from the Community Gardening Program06/29/09 08:49:301/6"Integrated programming is defined as a collaborative approach involving partners and various disciplinesplanning and implementing one or more strategies to impact micro and macro systems associated with one ormore identified issues" (DeBord, 2007, ¶ 11). Integrated Extension programming is a joint approach(involving two or more disciplines) to planning, delivering, and evaluating multi-faceted strategies foraddressing broad community issues. It involves a coordinated effort among Extension educators incommunity development, 4-H, family and consumer sciences, agriculture, horticulture, and natural resourcesto meet the needs of the community.In integrated programming, it is essential to collaborate across multiple disciplines to bring necessaryresources to address community issues (DeBord, 2007). Integrated programming empowers local Extensioneducators to address community issues realistically by complementing what they have to offer from theirrespective program areas.With all of these advantages, there are some challenges of integrated programming. The most significantchallenge is managing the collaboration through the process of planning, delivering, and evaluating theExtension program without any major conflict. It is important for collaborating partners of integratedprogramming to understand that everyone has to contribute to achieve the impact and that everyone has toshare in the credit for the impact. If the collaborators are ready to share the program responsibility as well ascredit, then it is easy to manage an integrated Extension program without major conflicts.If the credit is not shared by the partners, then there is a potential to destroy the collaboration and integratedprogramming. This can happen if the impact evaluation is not systematically designed to document a broadrange of impacts of integrated programs and if some of the partners have been left without any impacts fortheir program areas. Lack of tools available for interdisciplinary programming is cited in Extension literature(Guion, 2009). This article describes how to evaluate an integrated Extension program for a sustainablecollaboration.The community gardening concept was adopted as a vehicle for integrated Extension programming in NorthCarolina. The Horticulture agents, 4-H agents, Family and Consumer Sciences agents, Agriculture agents,and Community Development agents in counties worked together to conduct community gardeningprograms. They collectively coordinated the community gardening program to educate community membersabout gardening, community development, nutrition and healthy lifestyles, youth development, soil andwater conservation, selection of plants and varieties, marketing produce, etc.Impact Evaluation of Integrated ProgramsThe impact evaluation of integrated Extension programs can be organized under the following steps.Determine the major Extension activities of the integrated program.1. Identify the objectives of major Extension activities.2. Determine the intended outcomes of objectives.3. Identify unique indicators for intended outcomes.4. Impact Evaluation of Integrated Extension Programs: Lessons Learned from the Community Gardening Program06/29/09 08:49:302/6Develop an approach for collecting impact data.5. Determining Major ActivitiesThe first step of impact evaluation is to determine the major Extension activities of the integrated program.For an example, the community gardening program has educational activities focused on communitydevelopment, gardening and horticulture education, healthy lifestyle education, youth development, andenvironmental conservation. In integrated programming, these educational activities support each other inachieving the overall program goal.Identification of Key ObjectivesNext, key objectives of major Extension activities should be identified in order to plan impact evaluation. Forexample, the community development Extension activities aim to accomplish the following objectives:To organize the community for a collaborative project such as community gardening.• To increase community members' involvement in community development activities.• To develop sustainable communities.• The gardening and horticulture education activities focus on the following objectives:To increase participants' knowledge about gardening.• To increase participants' active involvement in gardening.• To increase the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables.• The healthy lifestyle education activities of the community gardening program aim to achieve the followingobjectives:To increase fruits and vegetable consumption of participants.• To increase physical activities of the participants.• To reduce the obesity of participants.• The youth development activities of the community gardening program aim to achieve the followingobjectives:To further youths' conceptual knowledge about plants, soils, insects and the environment.• Impact Evaluation of Integrated Extension Programs: Lessons Learned from the Community Gardening Program06/29/09 08:49:303/6To develop youths' skills in practicing sustainable gardening techniques.• To develop youths' leadership skills, including communication, critical thinking, problem solving,decision-making, and cooperation.• Determining Intended OutcomesIf the objectives are written in action form, it is easy to determine the intended outcomes of plannedExtension activities. For example, as a result of implementing a coordinated effort for achieving thecommunity development objectives, the following outcomes can be expected:Coordinated involvement in community development.• Increased number of community members taking leadership in community development work.• Increased responsibility for caring and sharing community resources.• The following outcomes can be expected if the horticulture education activities are implemented:Participants' increased knowledge about gardening.• Participants' increased involvement in gardening.• Increased availability of fruits and vegetables.• The following outcomes can be anticipated for the healthy lifestyle education Extension activities:Increased fruits and vegetable consumption of participants.• Increased physical activities of participants.• Reduced body mass index (BMI) of participants.• If the youth development activities are implemented the following outcomes can be expected:Youths' increased knowledge about plants, insects, and environment.• Youths' gardening skill development.• Youths' leadership skill development.• Impact Evaluation of Integrated Extension Programs: Lessons Learned from the Community Gardening Program06/29/09 08:49:304/6Identification of Impact IndicatorsIt is important to identify unique indicators for outcomes to avoid multiple counting in impact evaluation ofintegrated programs. An impact indicator can be described as a reasonable and meaningful measurement ofan intended client outcome. For example, the following impact indicators can be used to evaluate theoutcomes of coordinated community development activities:Number of community development activities organized and carried out by the community.• Number of community members engaged in leadership roles.• The total value of volunteer hours granted by the community members for their communitydevelopment.• For the horticulture education part of the program, the following impact indicators can be used:Number of participants increased their knowledge about gardening.• Number of participants involved in gardening.• Value of the amount of fruits and vegetables produced.• The following impact indicators can be used to evaluate the outcomes of healthy lifestyle educationExtension activities:Number of participants increased their fruits and vegetable consumption.• Number of participants increased physical activities.• Number of participants reduced their BMI.• For the youth development component of the Extension program, the following impact indicators can beused:Number of youths increased their knowledge about plants, insects and environment.• Number of youths developed their gardening skills.• Number of youths developed their leadership skills.• Impact Evaluation of Integrated Extension Programs: Lessons Learned from the Community Gardening Program06/29/09 08:49:305/6Collecting Impact DataThe next step of evaluating integrated programs is to develop tools and methods for collecting impact data.Integrated programming involves working with the target audience for an extended period of time. Thismakes it possible to conduct pre- and post-evaluations to collect data. By comparing pre- and post-testevaluations, impact of the Extension program can be documented.Practical ImplicationIt is important to determine and document the impacts of diverse Extension activities to reflect thecoordinated efforts of the integrated Extension program. Documentation as well as sharing impacts with thepartners is necessary to strengthen the collaboration and sustain the integrated Extension programming effort.ReferencesCenters for Disease Control (CDC). (2008). U.S. Obesity trends 1985-2007. Retrieved on April 23, 2009from: http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/DeBord, K. (2007). How integrated Extension programming helps market Cooperative Extension: The NorthCarolina recommendation. Journal of Extension [On-line], 45(5) Article 5COM1. Available at:http://www.joe.org/joe/2007october/comm1.phpGuion, L. A. (2009). A tool for focusing integrated team efforts on complex issues. Journal of Extension[On-line], 47(1) Article 1TOT2. Available at: http://www.joe.org/joe/2009february/tt2.phpCopyright © by Extension Journal, Inc. ISSN 1077-5315. Articles appearing in the Journal become theproperty of the Journal. Single copies of articles may be reproduced in electronic or print form for use ineducational or training activities. Inclusion of articles in other publications, electronic sources, or systematiclarge-scale distribution may be done only with prior electronic or written permission of the Journal EditorialOffice, joe-ed@joe.org.If you have difficulties viewing or printing this page, please contact JOE Technical Support.Impact Evaluation of Integrated Extension Programs: Lessons Learned from the Community Gardening Program06/29/09 08:49:306/6

Impact Evaluation of Integrated Extension Programs: Lessons Learned from the Community Gardening Program

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Impact Evaluation of Integrated Extension Programs: Lessons Learned from the Community Gardening Program

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