Evaluation Research

The aim of evaluation research is to enhance knowledge, aid decision

making and facilitate practical applications for the findings. Childers

concludes, "The differences between evaluative research and other research

center on the orientation of the research and not on the methods employed"

(Childers and Van House 1993).

In the current POT study, the position and views of the tutors are explained

through evaluation research. The research is used to enhance tutor visibility

within the Dental School, explore their developmental needs and provide

tutors and the school with overarching feedback on the POT scheme. The

research also evaluates the impact of the POT scheme and gives evidence to

support future decision making with regard to the enhancement of

professional teaching practice. Research findings will enhance the position

and value of these staff members with regard to quality enhancement and

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Wallace and Van Fleet (2001) comment that evaluation should be carefully

planned, not occur by accident; have a purpose that is usually goal oriented;

focus on determining the quality of a product or service; go beyond

measurement; not be any larger than necessary; and reflect the situation in

which it will occur. Similarly, evaluation should contribute to an

organization's planning efforts; be built into existing programmes and

provide useful, systematically collected data. It is important that evaluation

research has a purpose and should not be an end in itself, there should be

some potential for action as a result of the evaluation outcomes, otherwise it

could be argued that there is no need for the evaluation. Evaluation should

take into account relationships between users and organisations and could

function as a communication tool between these groups. Evaluation should

be ongoing and provide a continual loop of monitoring, change and

improvement. Ongoing evaluation should also be dynamic with the

incorporation of new knowledge and changes in the environment.

This evaluation approach is appropriate as the POT scheme has great

practical significance to the development of clinical tutors teaching at the

University of Glasgow Dental School. The intention of the design of this

evaluation research is that the University of Glasgow and similar

institutions with clinical teaching requirements will find the findings,

outcomes and recommendations useful and informative, and they will lead

to action. The POT literature suggests that POT can work in many settings,

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study context of chairside dentistry and to improve and develop POT for

Dental tutors.

As the person who set up the POT scheme in the Dental School at Glasgow,

and having considered the importance of researching the scheme from its

inception I was uniquely placed to evaluate the POT scheme from the start.

Evaluation of the scheme was necessary to gain insight into how the

scheme was operating, to understand participants' perspectives on their

teaching practice and to find out what worked and what did not work.

Clearly, the project aims were focused on improving teaching practice,

modifying and adapting what was already occurring to enhance the success

of teaching in this context, and evaluation research was considered an

appropriate way of researching the scheme. Evaluation methodology was

considered ideal to assess the effects of the scheme, to determine whether it

works as an intervention, to gauge the benefits for participants within the

community of practice and to illustrate how effective the scheme is for

development of teaching practice. The ultimate aim of the POT scheme is

to improve student experience; this is, however, difficult to measure as the

students are not the direct recipients and participants in the scheme.

There are four recognised evaluation strategies (Trochim 2006). The first

strategy is that of ‘scientific-experimental models’, here the focus is on

objectives based research, it concerns itself with impartiality and objectivity

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constructivism adopted for this study. The second strategy is the

‘management-oriented systems model’; these models are used in business

and government where evaluation tends to sit within a larger framework.

The third section of strategies is the ‘qualitative/anthropological models’.

These models aim to retain the phenomenological quality of the evaluation

context and value subjective human interpretation within the evaluation

process. This strategy fits well with the current study. The fourth group of

strategies are the ‘participant-oriented models’, where importance is placed

upon the evaluation participants , in this case the users of the POT scheme

and the stakeholders in managerial positions, so again this model fits well.

The current study uses a blend of the third and fourth strategies described.

Evaluation research can be further subdivided into formative and

summative (Trochim 2006). Formative evaluations strengthen or improve

what is being evaluated; this is reflected within the current study, as it is via

the findings that I aim to provide improvements to the current scheme. The

current study can, however, also be seen as summative evaluation of the

first main stage of implementation of the POT scheme as it examines the

outcomes, effects and impact of the newly established POT scheme.

The steps in performing evaluation research (Northwest, Centre for Public

Health Practice 2017) are to engage the stakeholders, describe the scheme,

focus the evaluation design, gather credible evidence, justify conclusions,

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As the current study looks at the set-up and administering of a POT scheme

as well as researching its impact, I have also provided some process

evaluation. Analysis will show variations in the way the scheme is

conducted away from the suggested process given in the guidance. This

analysis may highlight strengths and weaknesses in the current scheme

regarding its functionality. Process evaluation is probably the most frequent

form of evaluation (Weiss 1998) and looks at what a programme actually

does (Rossi et al 2004).

Qualitative evaluation is appropriate when the phenomena under

investigation cannot be quantified and more attention needs to be given to

subjective issues such as human experience and behaviour (Powell and

Connaway 2004). Qualitative methods allow research to be dynamic and

adaptive with an understanding of specific context and history. It also

allows an element of flexibility to account for unpredicted occurrences.

Qualitative methods are also very labour and time intensive with regard to

data collection and analysis. Human experience and behaviour figure

largely in this current study and this explains the qualitative nature of the

evaluation study.