CDL Outcomes Assessment Tutorial
How to get from where you are to where you need to be:
Step by Step from Outcome Question to Outcome Reports.
Survey/Questionnaire Measurement
To set up the CDL system to handle a survey question or a questionnaire, one first needs to decide which Tool and which Item/Domain (question(s) is going to address the desired outcomes.
One also must identify which Intermediate Level Outcome attempting to be measured. The Intermediate Level Outcomes can be selected from the pull-down menu (Select Report) on the front screen on the Outcomes Report. If one is attempting to measure success or satisfaction, one must select a question to be answered from a questionnaire. The questionnaire is the Tool and the question selected is the Item/Domain. One of two ways may be chosen to measure outcomes: Either measure the same question before the program begins and when the participant has completed the program (pre and post survey), or the question can be phrased in a way that indicates that the program resulted in an improved situation and the survey question is asked of the participant after the program has been completed.
Step 1. Once you’ve decided the Tool name and the Item/Domain name, these need to be set up in the Look-Up tables under Administration from the Front Screen. Click on Administration from the front CDL Menu. Go to LU_AssessmentToolItems in the Lookup Tables. Scroll to the bottom of the table and place the curser in the empty field. Enter in the name of the Assessment Tool description on the left and then on the right enter the Item/Domain description.
Step 2. From the front screen, click on Reporting. Then click on Outcomes Reports. The first screen shows the little wizard guy on the left and the message, “Please Select a Report.” Click on the Assessment Evaluation Report. Example: High Level Outcomes may be to reduce juvenile arrests.
Intermediate Level Outcomes (ILO) appear in CDL below the HLO on the Select Report screen. It is a pull-down list. An example from the counseling program: 3.04.08 Constructive Use of Time. The survey question would address how a youth spent non-school or otherwise structured time and you should be able to match a specific question to this ILO. Another example from the respite program is: “Has accessing Respite Care helped to reduce the stress level in your home?”
Step 3. If you want to know what your percent comparison is with your target, include a target percent in the next field. In our counseling example, it is 80%. In our Respite Care Program, it might be 100% because program sponsors believe that every family they survey will tell them that their service/program reduced their family stress level.
Step 4. Click on Next in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. It will forward you to the next screen where you must select the name of the program you want to measure. It might be “Respite Services” or it might be “Mentoring” or “Therapeutic Preschool” etc.
Step 5. Click on the program you want to measure from the Program Selection screen. Next is the challenge. You must select the time period you want to report on. The Assessment Evaluation Report is used to see how effective your program was during a given time frame. We are, in effect, asking someone from our program whether or not they improved over the time they participated in our program/services.
Step 6 Let’s choose a manual date range. Click in the radio button next to the word “Manual.” Then highlight the date and input the start period date and the end period date.
Skip through the filters (Click on Next in the lower right-hand corner of each screen) until you get to page 8 of 12 where you will need to select the Tool and the Item Domain.
CDL requires you to enter selections through the reporting period. Even though one may skip through the filters (demographics etc.) a program, an assessment tool, an item/domain, a score, and a date range must all be selected in order for the report to be generated. At the end of the report selections, the final question is to select which population you want to choose as the assessment comparison. This requires a bit of thought. Do you want to compare the number of “selected” participants against all those who participated in the program, or do you want to compare the number of “selected” participants against any one of the other demographic filters—depending on which you choose (usually one does want to compare the selected people/participants with ALL who participated in the program during the time frame), the percentage will calculate automatically. This can then be compared against your target percentage.
Once the report is formatted (it happens instantly), the report summary will appear on your screen. Keep in mind this is only the summary page. Further breakdowns (pages 1 – 5 etc.) can be accessed by hitting the right arrow in the lower left portion of your screen.
If you want to save these reports, you have several options. 1) From CDL, print them off by pulling the print selection from the File menu in the top left of your screen. 2) From CDL, Export the report as a file format of Access, Excel, Word, Snapshot format or Text. 3) From CDL, E-mail the report as any of the above-listed formats to any recipient including you.
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