| Course | MSW 515 Advanced Social Work Research |
|---|---|
| Week | 7 |
| Paper type | Program evaluation plan |
| Length | About 620 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | Master of Social Work (MSW) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MSW 515 Week 7
Program Evaluation Plan for the Family Education Course, Written for the Clinical Director: One Question, One Primary Outcome Carried From Model to Analysis, Success Criteria Set Before Results and a Separate Report for Each Audience
Student Name
Chamberlain University
MSW 515: Advanced Social Work Research
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Program Evaluation Plan for the Family Education Course, Written for the Clinical Director: One Question, One Primary Outcome Carried From Model to Analysis, Success Criteria Set Before Results and a Separate Report for Each Audience
The Question, on Page One
Does the eight-session family education course help relatives handle problems at home more effectively than waiting for the next course? We will answer it with the January and March 2027 cohorts and report in September 2027.
The Outcome, Carried Through
The primary outcome is family empowerment, a measure of how able relatives feel to deal with services and with problems at home. It appears in the logic model as a short-term outcome, is measured with the Family Empowerment Scale with wording adapted for relatives of adults (Koren et al., 1992) and is the score compared between groups in the analysis. A second outcome, distress, is measured with the six-item K6 (Kessler et al., 2002). Burden is not an outcome, because the trial of this model did not find a change in it (Dixon et al., 2011), and promising it would set the course up to fail.
The Design, Without Notation
Relatives in the January course and relatives waiting for the March course both fill in a short form at sign-up and eight weeks later. If the course group improves more, the course is the likely reason, though not the only possible one.
Relatives on the waiting list keep their place in the March course and can use the center's support group and crisis line in the meantime. No one waits longer because of the evaluation; the wait already exists because the course fills.
What It Asks of Staff
Peer teachers: three minutes a session for the fidelity checklist and the sign-in sheet. Front desk: handing out and collecting forms, about 15 minutes a cohort. Two student workers: data entry and exit interviews, about 30 hours across the spring. No clinician time is needed.
Success Criteria, Set Now
The course will be judged to be working if the course group's mean empowerment gain exceeds the waiting group's by at least half a standard deviation of the enrollment scores, and at least three in four completers describe a specific change at home in exit interviews. The verdict will be that it is not working if the difference is near zero and interviews describe satisfaction without change. Anything between is a mixed result, and the plan says so in advance.
A Report for Each Audience
Clinical director: a four-page report with results, what they mean for staffing and the next steps. Levy board: a one-page summary with the success criteria and whether they were met. Peer teachers: a meeting to go over fidelity results and interview themes before anyone else sees them. Families: a short letter in plain language, sent to all participants, including those who waited.
Limitations That Belong to This Plan
Relatives were not assigned at random. The empowerment scale was written for parents of children. The sample is small enough that a modest real effect could be missed. The evaluation stops at week 8, so it cannot say whether gains last, a question the original trial's follow-up did answer for its own course (Lucksted et al., 2013).
Timeline
January: committee approval and first forms. March: course group's week 8 forms; waiting group begins its course. April through May: exit interviews and coding. June: analysis. September: reports.
References
Dixon, L. B., Lucksted, A., Medoff, D. R., Burland, J., Stewart, B., Lehman, A. F., Fang, L. J., Sturm, V., Brown, C., & Murray-Swank, A. (2011). Outcomes of a randomized study of a peer-taught Family-to-Family Education Program for mental illness. Psychiatric Services, 62(6), 591-597. https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.62.6.pss6206_0591
Kessler, R. C., Andrews, G., Colpe, L. J., Hiripi, E., Mroczek, D. K., Normand, S.-L. T., Walters, E. E., & Zaslavsky, A. M. (2002). Short screening scales to monitor population prevalences and trends in non-specific psychological distress. Psychological Medicine, 32(6), 959-976. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291702006074
Koren, P. E., DeChillo, N., & Friesen, B. J. (1992). Measuring empowerment in families whose children have emotional disabilities: A brief questionnaire. Rehabilitation Psychology, 37(4), 305-321. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0079106
Lucksted, A., Medoff, D., Burland, J., Stewart, B., Fang, L. J., Brown, C., Jones, A., Lehman, A., & Dixon, L. B. (2013). Sustained outcomes of a peer-taught family education program on mental illness. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 127(4), 279-286. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2012.01901.x
The Chamberlain MSW 515 Week 7 instructions
The week 7 plan brings the term's pieces together into a document an agency could use. Write it for the person who runs the service: the question should be legible on the first page, the design explained without notation the reader would need to look up, and the demands on staff stated in hours. Carry one primary outcome consistently from the logic model through measurement to analysis, so a reader checking the chain finds it unbroken. Set criteria for success before any results exist, including what a mixed result would look like. Plan a different report for each audience. Name limitations that belong to this specific plan rather than to research in general. Include a timeline from approval to reporting.
Inside the MSW 515 Week 7 example
The plan opens with a one sentence question and a reporting date of September 2027. The outcome section traces family empowerment from the logic model to the adapted scale by Koren et al. (1992) to the between-group comparison, adds the K6 (Kessler et al., 2002) as a second outcome and explains why burden is excluded, citing Dixon et al. (2011). The design is described in plain sentences, and staff demands are listed by role in minutes and hours. Success criteria set a half standard deviation difference and a three in four interview threshold, with a mixed result defined. Four audiences receive different reports, peer teachers first. Limitations cover nonrandom groups, the adapted scale, sample size and the week 8 endpoint, and a timeline closes the plan.
MSW 515 Week 7 rubric: what full points look like
The heaviest weight falls on internal consistency. An outcome that appears in the model, a different one in the instruments and a third in the analysis loses heavily, because a reader who checks the chain finds it broken. Faculty also grade the plan as a document for a real reader: the question must be clear on the first page and the design explained without jargon. Criteria for success set before results earn significant credit, and a plan without them cannot be interpreted later. Reporting is assessed for fit to each audience. Limitations should belong to this plan. Staff burden, timeline and ethical safeguards are expected, along with APA references for every instrument and study.
Common MSW 515 Week 7 mistakes, and how to avoid them
The most damaging problem in a plan this long is disagreement between its own sections, which happens when earlier assignments are pasted in without revision. A second is a single report written for everyone, usually one only the funder could read. Plans also leave interpretation until results arrive, with no criteria for what would count as success. Generic limitations, such as "the sample may not generalize," without anything specific to the program, cost points too. If your program is different, perhaps a school-based attendance team or a re-entry service, the same checks apply before submission: one outcome carried through, criteria set in advance and a report for each reader. A plan built for your program would be readable by its director in one sitting.
Get a MSW-515 Week 7 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 7 instructions with whatever your section requires in the appendix, and a complete plan is written on your own program and returned inside 24 to 48 hours, the first one free. If earlier weeks are already submitted, send them and the plan is built to agree with what you wrote.
More MSW 515 papers and MSW samples
- MSW 515 Week 1: Program to Evaluate Post
- MSW 515 Week 2: Logic Model and Evaluation Question
- MSW 515 Week 3: Family Education Literature Matrix
- MSW 515 Week 4: Wait-List Evaluation Design Plan
- MSW 515 Week 5: AB Single-System Design
- MSW 515 Week 6: Mixed Methods Data Analysis Plan
- MSW 515 Week 8: Findings Presentation
- MSW 516 Week 7: Level Mismatch Memo
- MSW 514 Week 7: Eastgate Community Systems Analysis
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MSW 515 Week 7 questions, answered
How long is the finished plan?
Sections vary widely and the page count is set by your own assignment rather than by convention. What is consistent is that the plan reads as one document rather than as seven weekly submissions stapled in order, which usually means rewriting the earlier pieces so the terminology matches and the outcome is called the same thing on every page.
Should service users receive the findings?
The plan is stronger for saying yes and describing how. People who gave their time and their answers have an interest in what came of it, and reporting back sits with the profession's commitments rather than being a courtesy. A short accessible summary, delivered through the service itself, is usually all that is required and is rarely proposed.
What if my program changed while I was planning the evaluation?
Say so in the plan and adjust, since services move and evaluations that pretend otherwise are the ones that fail in the field. A program that added a session or lost a worker has changed what its model claims, and updating the model is a small edit compared with defending an evaluation of something that no longer exists.
Where can I find a free MSW 515 Week 7 sample paper?
This page carries a full MSW 515 Week 7 program evaluation plan for the course families take from trained peers, written for the clinical director, with margin notes.
What success criteria does the MSW 515 Week 7 sample set?
A course group gain in empowerment at least half a standard deviation larger than the waiting group's, plus at least three in four completers describing a specific change at home.