USING A PRACTICAL PROGRAM-EVALUATION MODEL TO CHART THE OUTCOMES OF AN EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVE - PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING

This paper describes an approach to evaluation which provides a practi cal and systematic framework for assessing educational and clinical pr ograms. It encourages medical educators and clinicians to consider aca demic dissemination (e.g. presentations and publications), product dev elopment (e.g. training materials, workshops and learning resource pac kages), and implementation (e.g. maintained at the original site, repl icated or adapted elsewhere) as three primary outcomes when evaluating programs. Measurements of impact for each of these primary outcomes a re identified which usually involve a number count of participants, us ers or sites. Finally, measurements of impact of three possible second ary outcomes that focus on education, clinical service and administrat ion are outlined This paper applies the outcomes of problem-based lear ning to the model's framework and discusses how medical educators and clinicians can use this model to conduct evaluations of their own init iatives and programs.