Resources

The following materials are available from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) by mail or through the NIAAA Web site (www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov):

Task Force Report

• A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges
  Final Report of the Task Force on College Drinking

Panel Reports

• High-Risk Drinking in College: What We Know and What We Need To Learn
  Final Report of the Task Force on College Drinking’s
  Panel on Contexts and Consequences
  
• How To Reduce High-Risk College Drinking: Use Proven Strategies, Fill Research Gaps
  Final Report of the Task Force on College Drinking’s
  Panel on Prevention and Treatment

Brochures

• What Parents Need to Know About College Drinking
  
• What Peer Educators and Resident Advisors (RAs) Need to Know About College Drinking
  
• What Presidents Need to Know About College Drinking

Future Brochures

• What Community Leaders Need to Know About College Drinking
  
• What High School Guidance Counselors Need to Know About College Drinking
  
• What Students Need to Know About College Drinking

Planning and Evaluation Handbook

Reducing Alcohol Problems on Campus: A Guide to Planning and Evaluation

U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention

The Higher Education Center is the Nation’s primary resource to assist colleges and universities as they develop, implement, and evaluate programs and policies to address alcohol and other drug problems on campus. The Center provides assistance and information to help prevention program planners assess campus needs, develop a strategic plan, and measure results.

Resources available at the Center’s Web site (http://www.edc.org/hec/eval) include the following:

Evaluation Links and Resources: This section provides a comprehensive list of evaluation resources on a wide range of evaluation topics. It includes Center publications on evaluation, online evaluation guides, comprehensive evaluation Web sites, needs assessment, evaluation planning and design, and data collection.

Resources for Selecting and Working with a Program Evaluator. Listed here are resources for prevention professionals to assist in choosing and working with an outside evaluator.

Higher Education Center’s Evaluator Database. The referral database allows users to search for an evaluator or register themselves as an evaluator.

Environmental Measurement in Alcohol and Other (AOD) Drug Prevention: This section provides presentations and other resources on methods for measuring environmental change efforts.

The following publications can be ordered or downloaded for free from the Higher Education Center’s Web site (http://www.edc.org/hec/pubs):

Understanding Evaluation: The Way to Better Prevention Programs (HEC 905). (Note: Only print copies are available; they can be ordered through the publications section of the Higher Education Center’s Web site.) This handbook describes the “how and why” of program evaluation and outlines the steps involved, working from the premise that many useful evaluations can be conducted by program staff who may not have formal training in evaluation.

A College Case Study: A Supplement to Understanding Evaluation (HEC 904). In telling the story of a fictitious college, this case study helps prevention specialists, administrators, and others concerned with preventing AOD use on college campuses get a feel for what is involved in setting up an evaluation of a college AOD prevention program and what can be gained from the process.

College Alcohol Risk Assessment Guide: Environmental Approaches to Prevention (HEC 109). This guide is designed to help college administrators identify factors within the campus environment that contribute to alcohol-related problems. These factors are examined within the context of the public health approach, which emphasizes how the environment shapes behavior. Methods for identifying problems include scanning, analysis, response, and assessment. The publication also contains scanning and analysis exercises and selected resources.

Methods for Assessing Student Use of Alcohol and Other Drugs (HEC 104). This guide offers a straightforward method for gathering and interpreting student survey data on alcohol-related problems based on the methodology used in a national college alcohol study conducted in 1993 by the Harvard School of Public Health. It can easily be adapted for all college and university campuses.

Selecting the Right Tool: A Compendium of Alcohol and Other Drug Assessment and Evaluation Instruments for Use in Higher Education (HEC 114). This compendium covers the important issues to consider when selecting data collection instruments and describes the leading instruments used in the postsecondary AOD prevention field. (Sample instruments are included in the printed document, but are not available on the Web site.)

How to Select a Program Evaluator (HEC 716). This 3-page flyer describes the role of evaluation in program planning and implementation; skills, expertise, qualifications, and experience to look for when seeking an evaluator; incentives for the evaluator; questions to ask when considering an evaluator; and how to network to find the right evaluator.

Online Evaluation Guides
These guides provide information, advice, and step-by-step instructions for conducting program evaluations. All can be accessed on the Web.

Basic Guide to Program Evaluation (http://www.mapnp.org/library/evaluatn/fnl_eval.htm). This document provides guidance for planning and implementing an evaluation process. Specific topics include getting information to make decisions about programs; basic ingredients of planning program evaluation; evaluating program processes, goals, and outcomes; selecting methods; analyzing and interpreting information; reporting evaluation results; and pitfalls to avoid.

Community How-To Guide on Evaluation (http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/alcohol/Community%20Guides%20HTML/Book3_Evaluation.html). This easy-to-use guide, created by the U.S. Department of Transportation, includes information on different types of evaluation, methods, planning an evaluation, and hiring an evaluator.

Demonstrating Your Program’s Worth: A Primer on Evaluation (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pub-res/dypw/01_Overview.htm). This manual, created at the National Center for Injury Prevention Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, describes how to conduct a simple evaluation, how to hire an outside evaluator, and how to incorporate evaluation activities into a prevention program.

Taking Stock: A Practical Guide to Evaluating Your Own Programs (http://www.horizon-research.com). This manual was created by Horizon Research to help community-based organizations design and carry out program evaluation. Topics include formative and summative evaluation, quantitative and qualitative data, and tips for interpreting and reporting data.

Comprehensive Evaluation Web Sites with Multiple Resource Links

The Web sites listed below contain multiple Web links and tools for program evaluation. Additional evaluation Web sites can be found at the Higher Education Center’s Web site (http://www.edc.org/hec/eval/links.html).

American Evaluation Association (http://www.eval.org). The American Evaluation Association is an international professional association of evaluators devoted to the application and exploration of program evaluation, personnel evaluation, technology evaluation, and many other forms of evaluation. Web site resources include publications, Web links, reports, surveys, topical interest groups, and lists of electronic mailing lists related to evaluation, meetings, events, and training. This may also be a source for identifying and recruiting evaluation specialists.

Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) Decision Support System/PreventionDSS (http://www.preventiondss.org). PreventionDSS is an online training and technical assistance resource designed to guide substance abuse prevention practitioners through a 7-step planning and evaluation process. While the focus is youth substance abuse in a community context, the site contains extensive tools and resources that are transferable to higher education settings. Modules include assessing needs, developing strategic plans, building a logic model, choosing promising practices, and conducting evaluation.

The Evaluation Center (http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr). The Evaluation Center, located at Western Michigan University, is a research and development unit that provides national and international leadership for advancing the theory and practice of evaluation. The site includes evaluation support services in the form of publications, resource links, project descriptions, a searchable directory of evaluators, evaluation checklists, and a glossary of evaluation terminology.

Research Methods Knowledge Base This is a comprehensive Web-based textbook that addresses all of the topics in a typical introductory undergraduate or graduate course in social research methods. It covers the entire research process including: formulating research questions, sampling, measurement, research design, data analysis, and report writing.

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Historical document
Last reviewed: 9/23/2005