The Tuesday Letter
Agricultural Experiment Station & Cooperative Extension Service
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
(Vol. 18 No. 5)
IN THIS ISSUE...
WORD FROM THE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR - EXTENSION AND APPLIED RESEARCH
K-State Research and Extension professionals like empowering
people. We provide the needed education, research and facilitation to help
people address their issues, problems and concerns. We provide our learners
with “Knowledge for Life.” Our success stories and impact reports show that we
are great at what we do!
To develop even better programs, it is important to
understand both the needs of our learners and the needs of Kansans who do not
use our services. Most of us can probably develop a list of such needs. If we
put all of our lists together, the list would probably be quite expansive. We
would like to help Kansans address all of them, but this is impossible. Thus,
it is important to develop programs in each program area that address
the issues that Kansans deem most important.
We are now embarking on a new program prioritization project. The goal of this project will be to identify the critical issues in each
program area that our learners and potential learners want us to address. This two
year project will be spearheaded by the Program Prioritization Task Force. This
task force will be made up of an agent or specialist from each program focus
team and our Assistant Directors. The
task force will:
determine how to best ask our learners and potential
learners about the relative importance of
pressing issues
determine how concerned our learners and potential
learners are about the pressing issues
distribute the results to our program focus teams
The information we receive in this project will be priceless.
It will allow us to develop action plans in each program area
that address the issues that each program areas’ clients
and potential clients deem most important. Effectively addressing these
priority concerns will increase our learners’ satisfaction and raise our
notoriety even higher in their hearts and minds. By including those who do not
currently utilize our services, we will be better able to attract new audiences
for our K-State Research and Extension programs, which will further enhance our
image of indispensability to Kansans.
To carry out the program prioritization project, we need your
help. You may be asked by your Program Focus Team leaders to serve on the
Program Prioritization Task Force. You may be asked for your opinion about questions
to ask our learners or which learners to interview or survey. Once the project
is completed, we will ask you to think about the results and consider them when
you are developing your action plans. So, when asked to contribute to the
project, please make it a priority to do so.
At K-State Research and Extension, we strive to continually
improve our ability to provide Kansans with “Knowledge for Life.” The Program
Prioritization Project is another tool that will help us achieve this goal. Have a great week! - Daryl Buchholz dbuchhol@ksu.edu
2011 AG PROFITABILITY CONFERENCE, PROFITABILITY IN VOLATILE TIMES: RECOVERING FROM DISASTER
Sedgwick County Extension will be holding the 2011 Ag Profitability Conference on December 6 at the Extension office located at 7001 W. 21st Street North in Wichita, Kansas. Registration will be from 7:30 – 8:30. The conference begins with registration followed by the morning Keynote speaker, Kansas Secretary of Agriculture, Dale Rodman. The luncheon speaker, Mel Thompson, Kansas Agricultural Assistance to Senator Pat Roberts, will give an update on the Farm Bill and other important Ag issues. The program starts at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m., so come and plan to spend the day. Additional information is on line at http://www.agmanager.info/
Register online at http://agprofit.eventbrite.com, or call Jackie at 316-660-0143. If you have any questions, please call Gary Cramer at 316-660-0153 or email him at gcramer@ksu.edu.--Jackie Fees jfees@ksu.edu
HEALTHY YOU SUCCESS STORIES
 At our recent annual conference you were introduced to the Healthy You workplace wellness initiative. We hope that you have taken an opportunity to visit the website at http://healthyyou.ksre.ksu.edu. One section of the website will feature success stories to help motivate all of us to adopt healthier lifestyles. This is where we need to hear from YOU! If you have a story to share, please use the form on the success story tab. As with most new websites, content is being added daily, so please check back often to see what's new. Read on to learn about Jennifer Smith, Douglas County, and her healthy lifestyle choices.
"Although I was overweight most of my life, I didn’t worry about it much until I switched jobs a few years ago and gained even more weight. One day, someone sent me a picture and I barely recognized myself in it. I made a plan that day to start running and eat healthier. The first time I went out I could barely run the length of a block. I set goals and pushed myself to do a little more each time. I began to feel better about myself, have less stress, more energy and sleep better. As physical activity and healthier food choices became a habit, I was able to lose 50 pounds and worked my way up to running a half-marathon." --Denise Sullivan dsulliva@ksu.edu and Pat Melgares melgares@ksu.edu
ASK THE OEIE EVALUATOR - THE BASICS OF SAMPLING
The time and resources required to conduct program evaluations are
common concerns for K-State Research and Extension professionals. For an
evaluation to be worthwhile, it must be practical for those who conduct
evaluations and those who respond to them. Furthermore, if an
evaluation is burdensome, the information gathered is often compromised.
Devising a thoughtful sampling strategy is one way to ensure that an
evaluation is practical and achievable.
Q: Why and how should I sample for my program evaluation?
Sampling
is the process of selecting units (i.e., individuals or groups of
participants) from a population of interest. In other words, sampling
involves selecting a subset of participants from whom you will seek
information, and when or how often you will seek this information from
them, rather than including all participants at all times. Depending on
the size of your audience, a selection of just 10-20% of participants
could be a valuable sample size.
Probability sampling is an approach in which all participants have a chance of being selected through some form of random selection. You could ask participants to complete a questionnaire in every 3rd or 5th workshop conducted, as an example of systematic random sampling. As an example of a simple random sample, you could draw names to select participants for a follow-up interview. You could combine approaches for a stratified random sampling
by dividing participants into particular groups of interest and then
random sampling from those groups. When random sampling is used, you can
generally assume that the feedback from your sample is representative
of the larger group.
Depending on the intent of your program, you may be especially
interested in evaluating the impact for a particular subset of the
audience. Purposive sampling
can be used if you want information from a specific group of
participants. For example, if you are particularly interested in whether
first-time participants benefit from your program, you could screen
these individuals during registration and only seek their participation
in your evaluation. However, it is important to keep in mind that when
random sampling is not used, as with purposive sampling,
results should be understood to apply just to the group that was
targeted (e.g., first-time participants) and not representative of the
larger group.
Remember, other decisions can help make your evaluation both
practical and valuable. You should be clear about what you hope to learn
from your evaluation and ensure that the questions you ask align with
these intents. Additional questions may be interesting to ask but could
make your evaluation more burdensome without adding value. [See previous
“Ask the OEIE Evaluator” segments] You should also determine what
programs are most important to evaluate in relation to current
priorities. Likewise, it is important to decide when the best time is to
conduct your evaluations; it is often best to assess the knowledge
gains of participants after the full program has ended.
Questions about evaluation? Visit the Extension Evaluation Resources website, or contact Amy Hilgendorf at OEIE, aehilgen@k-state.edu, or 785-532-5538. --Amy Hilgendorf
REQUEST FREE CREDIT REPORT BEFORE YEAR END
The Family Resource Management PFT would like to remind everyone
to request your free credit report for 2011 if you have not already done
so. You can request your free report
online, by phone or by mail. Visit www.AnnualCreditReport.com, call
1-877-322-8228, or fill out and mail in the Annual Credit Report Request form available on the website. No matter how you
request your report, you have the option to request all three reports at once
or to order one report at a time. By requesting the reports separately, for
example one every four months, you can monitor your credit more frequently
throughout the year.
Because the information in your credit report is used to
evaluate your applications for credit, insurance, employment, and renting a
home, you should be sure the information is accurate and up-to-date. In
addition, monitoring your credit is one of the best ways to spot identity
theft. Check your credit report at least once a year to correct errors
and detect unauthorized activity. --Debra Wood for the Family Resource Management PFT
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