Evaluation of a positive youth development program in Hong Kong: issues, principles and design

Several issues concerning evaluation of positive youth development programs in Hong Kong are outlined. These include the choice of evaluation paradigm, evaluation frameworks and evaluation standards, role of quantitative and qualitative research methods, process vs. outcome evaluation, and choice of objective outcome measures. With reference to the above issues, the evaluation design of a positive youth development program in Hong Kong is presented. Several principles are maintained in the design of the program. These include objective outcome assessment, use of multiple objective outcome indicators, subjective outcome evaluation, involvement of stakeholders in evaluation, assessment of program implementers' views, qualitative evaluation, collection of quantitative and qualitative data, process evaluation, triangulation of data collected from different sources by different methods, use of validated measures, following existing guidelines governing the evaluation of positive youth development programs, and continuous evaluation. Five evaluation strategies, including objective outcome evaluation, subjective outcome evaluation, qualitative evaluation, evaluation based on repertory grid tests, and process evaluation are proposed to evaluate the project.