Date of Award
2002
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
Dr. John A. Morgan, Jr.
Keywords
family health, Georgia Division of Public Health, infant and child health, inter-programmatic training, knowledge transfer, literature review, multimedia instruction, office management, program evaluation, program managers, professional development, staff development, staff training, summative committee, survey research, training effectiveness, workplace learning
Abstract
The Family Health Branch of the Georgia Division of Public Health has been going through a transition by changing its mode of operation from an administrative to a facilitative and supportive role. There have been several changes in managers of Offices within the Branch, along with reduction in staff at all levels. Some program managers from the Office of Infant and Child Health spend a great portion of their time out of the office doing site visits, attending meetings or presenting workshops. During their absence no one is available to address specific issues related to their programs. An inter-programmatic training program was developed to increase the knowledge pertaining to all Infant and Child Health programs of all staff within the Office. Three modules were presented in the Fall of 2000. The problem is that there was no measured evidence that the objectives of the three initial training modules had been met.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the staff training program to determine whether the staff who participated in the inter-programmatic training have a better understanding of those three programs and the degree to which the goals of the training programs have been met.
Evaluation criteria was developed by the researcher based on literature review, with input from the formative committee, and validation by the summative committee. Surveys were sent to ten of the twelve training participants, with eighty percent response. Seventy-five percent indicated that they had a greater understanding of the programs presented. Eighty-seven percent agreed that their knowledge had increased, and the same percentage had shared learned information with others.
Upon completion of the study it was concluded that the training was effective. Recommendations were to define a planning committee to assist presenters in developing future programs, using multimedia tools and using pre and post tests. Evaluations should be completed immediately after training and repeated in six months to determine behavior change.