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Chapter Twelve
EVALUATING PARENT INVOLVEMENT 

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Parents, staff, and administration should regularly evaluate parent involvement in the Head Start program. By determining how actively and effectively parents participate, they can adjust and revise the program to better meet parents' needs.

The parent involvement plan can be used as a measure of parent involvement. Those who evaluate can, focus on the following questions.

How adequate is the plan in achieving its goals?

How well is the plan being carried out?

How satisfied are the parents with the program as planned?

In what way should the plan be revised?

The parent involvement coordinator can assist in the evaluation by devising methods and planning a schedule for evaluation.

METHODS OF EVALUATION

Objective evaluation is a difficult task. People tend to see and hear what they wish to or expect, rather than what is actually taking place. The methods of evaluation chosen should help the evaluator perceive things as they are.

Below are some methods appropriate for evaluating parent involvement:

• Observations of parents, parent-child interactions, and parent-staff interactions
• Interviews with parents and staff
• Questionnaires to parents and staff
• Review of reports, summaries and documents of parent participation
• Self-assessment/validation instrument.

Observation
By carefully noting what parents say, how they say it, their facial expressions, gestures, and
movements, staff members and other parents can tell much about how parents feel, how their needs are being met, and if their behavior is changing in any way. Good opportunities to observe are during meetings, social events, conferences, home visits, and when parents are with their children at the center.

Interviews
Interviews with parents specifically for the purpose of evaluation or during regular conferences or home Visits can yield much information about what parents think or feel about the parent involvement program and how it has helped them. When interviewing parents, it is usually better to focus on one area of the parent involvement program, such as parent education, rather than on the the total program. Specific questions such as "Did Dr. Jones' advice on discipline
your child better?" usually bring out more information than general questions such as "What did you learn from the program?" The interviewer should not express judgements about what parents say. Afterwards, the interviewer should write a summary of what the parent said.

Questionnaires
Questionnaires for the purpose of evaluation should be brief, easy to read, and give opportunities for expressing a wide range of opinions. One helpful technique is to provide a statement, not a question, and ask parents to rate their level of agreement or disagreement by marking a number from one to five. The purpose, form and questions in any questionnaire should be thoroughly explained to parents before they begin their answers.

The Self-Assessment/Validation Instrument
Head Start programs are required to annually evaluate how well they have satisfied the performance standards. The Self-Assessment/Validation Instrument is a form to be used in performing this self-evaluation. Parents, as well as staff members should participate in this evaluation. Parents should receive training on the SAVI process and participate on the team.

SCHEDULE FOR EVALUATION

A schedule for evaluation of the parent involvement program should be planned early in the program year. Regular evaluations provide the information needed to revise the parent-involvement plan over the course of the year and to perform the annual self-assessment. Each center should plan a schedule according to its needs. Following is a sample schedule with suggested methods.

• Evaluation of individual activities by parents and staff as they occur:
  1. questionnaires and checklists
  2. observations.
  
• Quarterly evaluation by parent and staff representatives:
  1. review of reports, monthly summaries, documents
  2. questionnaire to staff, center committee, and policy council.
  
• Semi-annual evaluation by all parents:
  1. questionnaire to all parents
  2. interviews with sample of parents.
  
• Annual evaluation by parent, staff, administrative and regional representatives.
  1. self-assessment/validation instrument
  2. review of previous evaluations.

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