The Evaluation Support Group, Inc.
Research, Evaluation and Data Consulting
To: OPEG Members and Friends
From: Jerry Bean
Re: Summer Stats Workshop Offering for August 7, 2012
Measurement in Program Evaluation.
This year’s Summer Stats series workshop will focus on some important topics in measurement. If evaluators do anything, they measure. Given the importance of this activity, evaluators should always do what they can to ensure that the measurement tools they use are psychometrically sound. This workshop is designed to provide some accessible tools and strategies that you can use in your practice to examine your measures. This workshop will be a ‘hands-on’ examination of these topics.
The schedule for the day is roughly as follows:
- Topic 1: A quick review of measurement terms and concepts
- Topic 2: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
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- What it is
- How to do it using popular statistical packages: SPSS, SAS, and Systat
- How to interpret an EFA
- Topic 3: Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
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- What it is
- How to do it using popular a student version of a popular package: MPlus
- How to interpret a CFA
- Topic 4: Developing your own approach to measurement
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- Scale design
- Conducting your own measurement studies and developing your own battery of measurement tools
- The importance of replication
As always, this will be a gentle introduction and discussion of some fairly advanced topics. Scale development and factor analysis has long been in the province of academicians and a handful of advanced practitioners. I believe we are at the stage now where tools and technologies are more accessible to real-world practice and we should begin to use them as much as we can. Topics will all be anchored in an actual project using real data from that project. Bring a computer and a statistical package of your choice for the exploratory factor analysis portion of the discussion. Download a copy of the student version MPlus (www.statmodel.com) and install it for the confirmatory factor analysis portion of the discussion. There are versions for both Windows and Mac OSs.
Program Details
- Date: August 7, 2012
- Time: 10:00am to 3:00pm
- Registration: Online through the OPEG Web site.
- Registration Limit: 25, First Come – First Serve
- Location: Stillman Hall on The Ohio State University campus in Columbus, OH
- Lunch: On your own.
- Parking: On you own in University Parking lots
- Computer: Bring your own
- Analysis Software: More detail to follow
- OPEG will provide snacks (Granola Bars)
