Evaluating diverse weight management programs with a standard evaluation questionnaire

Due to increasing pressures to document the effectiveness of educational pr ograms, a project was undertaken to develop impact indicators and accompany ing evaluation questionnaires for four of seven Dietary Guidelines for Amer icans. The results of field testing a 12-item knowledge and 16-item behavio r change evaluation questionnaire for the "healthy weight" dietary guidelin e are presented. A pre-, post-, and 3- to 6-month delayed postassessment me asurement design was selected to be used following completion of diverse mu lti-session weight management nutrition education programs designed by each participating state. Seven states in the Extension system collected and su bmitted both pre- and postdata; one state submitted pre-, post-, and delaye d postdata. Results indicate small gains in knowledge and significant impro vements in behaviors related to weight management in the broad categories o f food behavior, exercise behavior, and behavior modification changes. Howe ver, a state by test interaction was identified for food behavior and behav ior modification practices scores. States that showed no change for those m easures tended to have higher pretest scores but the statistical results ma y have been affected by small numbers of participants in some states. This study suggests that use of a standard set of impact indicators, knowledge a nd behavior questionnaires to assess programming impact at different locati ons may be feasible. It would be important to consider programmatic similar ities, such as program length and content, and differences in pre-entry dat a before aggregation of data occurs.