GUIDANCE PACK FOR MONITORING AND EVALUATING YOUR PROJECT
INDEX
Introduction / 3Why should you monitor and evaluate? / 3
Requirements of a Project Leader’s role in Monitoring and Evaluation / 4
- Project Data – Quantitative & Qualitative
- Project Leader Responsibilities
- Registration Forms
- Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (ParQ)
- Physical Activity Level Form
- Six Month Physical Activity Level Form
- Activity Register
- Excel: Participant Information Spreadsheet
Where to go for support / 11
INTRODUCTION
The Let’s Walk Cymru programme will have a strong focus on monitoring and evaluation for two reasons:
- To gather feedback from participants. Let’s Walk Cymru’s success will be measured in terms of the involvement and empowerment of people in the target groups.
- To gather evidence of what works best so that future health and well-being programmes can fund projects using methods that most effectively involve people.
As a Let’s Walk Cymruproject leader[1] you will be drawing out, gathering and recording that information. This pack will be your guide and reference through that process.
WHY SHOULD YOU MONITOR AND EVALUATE?
We want the monitoring of projects to be built into the everyday activities so that it becomes part of what you do.
Monitoring and evaluation are important for two main reasons:
- For learning and development.
Monitoring and evaluating your programme will help you assess how well you are doing in order to help you do it better. It is about asking what has happened and why – what is and what is not working. It is about learning more about an organisation’s activities, and then using that information to change things for the better.
- For accountability – to show others that you are effective.
Funders and other ‘stakeholders’ want to know whether a project has spent its money in the right way. There is pressure from funders to provide them with ‘proof’ of success. Many projects have to respond to this demand in order to survive.
(Source: Charities Evaluation Service (2002) First Steps in Monitoring and Evaluation, London, Charities Evaluation Service available at
REQUIREMENTS OF A PROJECT LEADER’S ROLE IN MONITORING AND EVALUATION
Project leaders will be responsible for the collection and recording of information:
- Quantitativeproject data is about what happens when, and who takes part. Quantitative means ‘things you can count and measure’.
Quantitative data from the Let’s Walk Cymru project activities will be used to help demonstrate whether or not the programme succeeds in its aims. In order to measure gains, information is needed about the individuals who are taking part and their levels of activitywhen they first start walking or participating with your project. This is called baseline data.
Project data will be gathered in three ways:
- Registration Forms
- Physical Activity Level Forms
- Activity Register
This information should be inputted into an Excel[2] Participant Information Spreadsheet.
N.B. If your project does not include any led walks, please contact Hannah Richards on 02920 338294 or .
- Qualitative project data is about collecting, analysing, and interpreting data by observing what people do and say. This type of research generates rich, detailed and valid (process) data that contributes to an in-depth understanding of the context.
Qualitative data from the Let’s Walk Cymru project activities will be used to help guide future process development of such funding schemes and to identify why certain projects are successful as well as to give constructive feedback as to how a project can be improved.
This type of research will not be undertaken with all projects. The Sports Council will chose a certain number of projects to carry out an in depth study which will include qualitative and quantitative research to evaluate the specific project. Those chosen will be informed on a one to one basis as soon as possible.
Project Leader Responsibilities
The following table outlines in a flow diagram what project leaders have to do and when.
Project/Activity Leader OutputsProject Data (Quantitative)
Frequency / Within the 1st Month of funding = existing members / 1st or 2nd attendance of every new participant / Each Activity Session / Six months into the project
Outputs / Registration details and
attendance details
alreadycollected / Registration Form
(and if appropriate Physical Activity Readiness questionnaire)
Physical Activity Form / Activity Register / Collect a sample of participants to complete a follow upphysical activity level form
/ Regularly enter all quantitative data onto the Excel
Participant Information Spreadsheet /
Email/post information to the Support Team within the first month of LWC funding. / At the end of each quarter email or post the Central
Support Team a copy of the completed
Participant Information Spreadsheet
/Post completed hard copy questionnaires to SCW directly via the FREEPOST address.
Registration Forms
The registration forms will collect new walkers’ name, address and post code, telephone number, email address, age, gender, disability, ethnicity, language, background information as to where they heard about the group and whether they would like to volunteer, as well as identifying health concerns[3].
The majority of this information collected on the registration forms is to gather demographic information of the walking participants that attend your walking initiatives so that the Sports Council for Wales (SCW) has meaningful information to inform an evaluation of Let’s Walk Cymru (LWC). This is also information, however, that you can use to keep records of your participants, discover where best to advertise your project and identify whether individuals would like to become involved in volunteering.
New Projects
This form is to be giventonew participants on the first or second walk they attend. This information is to be collected for all new walkers. If you have an existing club, but have not collected registration details from members, please use this form as well. Please send SCW this information on a quarterly basis from when your project receives funding. For example, if your project receives funding on Aug 1st; SCW would expect registration details of participants on Nov 1st, Feb 1st, May 1st and so on.
Existing Projects
For existing projects and for those members that you have already collected registration details from, there will be no need to re-register them using this form. However, if your project is an existing project, please send SCW registration details of existing members (in the format you have collected it in) within the first month of receiving funding. This will give SCW baseline information as to how many walkers are involved in your project before LWC funding has been granted, therefore allowing the evaluation to look at those numbers of participants which are a direct result of the LWC funding only.
Please note that it is your responsibility to explain to participantsthe importance of collecting this information, but also to let them know that when it is sent to the SCWsupport team it will be given code numbers, so they will not be identified.
Registration forms should be completed by the participants themselves where possible, but if, for example, they have difficulties due to literacy levels, or language, it’s fine for you or the activity leader to help them, or do it with them.
Physical Activity Level Form
The second form which will gather some important data for SCW is the Physical Activity Level (PAL) form. This form will ask individuals to state whether they think they are physically active and the regularity of this physical activity. This information will provide important baseline data on participants’ physical activity levels.
It is important that this information is gathered from participants before they have had much chance to feel a benefit from the walking clubs or walking initiatives of the project. This way, SCW will have a baseline measure which will be compared with data collected in the future. The primary reason for this is to assess whether a participants’ involvement in a LWC funded project has increased their physical activity levels; a key measure of success.
You need to explain clearly that the purpose of the physical activity level data is to measure the value of the project and the effectiveness of the LWC programme, and not them individually.
Every time a new member registers with the project, they will need to fill out this form. If your project is existing and has less than 50 members then please attempt to get everyone to complete this Physical Activity Level form. SCW would like this information emailed/posted every quarter along with the registration details.
If your project, however, has more then 50 existing members and you do not have their physical activity levels to hand, only send SCW the registration details you have as stated previously at the start of funding.
Six Month Physical Activity Form
At approximately six months into your project there is a need to gather the information on the follow up Physical Activity Level (PAL) form (appendix ?) from a sample of active[4]registered individuals. This follow up form is practically identical to the form new members were given at the start of their involvement in the project. The use of this information is to see whether attending a LWC funded walking group has changeda group’s patterns of exercise over a certain time frame.
This six months refers to the project rather than the individual. Therefore if funding is received on Sept 1st; data will need to be collected in February, rather than 6 months from when a particular individual starts.
If a new person registers at the time you are sending out the follow up PAL form, please give them the initial PAL form only.
The table below outlines the minimum and target number of responses needed to fulfil an adequate sample according to the size of your project. Please remember this only refers to the follow up PAL form that will be collected at the six month phase of your project funding.
For example, if your project had 325 active registered walkers, the minimum number of responses required by SCW would be 125 and the target number of responses required would be 225.
Number of Walkers / Minimum number if responses required / Target number of responses150 walkers and below / 50% of total number of members / 60% of total number of members
151-300 walkers / 40% of total number of members / 60% of total number of members
301-500 walkers / 125 / 225
501-750 walkers / 150 / 250
751-1000 walkers / 275 / 400
If you have more than 1000 active participants; please contact Hannah Richards.
02920 338294 or .
This is where information collected and filed from the registration details will come in handy, i.e. their name and address. Or, alternately ask for individuals to fill out a form at the end of their walk.
We recognise that inputting this data may be time consuming and suggest project leaders send the hard copies to SCW directly, hence we would input this data accordingly for you.
Activity Register
Each walk or initiative will need to have a register which will be able to show how many participants there were at each session. This form will also include the date of the session, its start and finish time, who the leader is, the location of the session and type of session (e.g. walking group or walking course etc), name and age of participants.
There will also be a box called CTH. This will only be relevant to walking groups. The walk leader will ask walkers whether anybody’s health has changed since the last walk. If someone’s health has changed they will tick this box, the Par Q form will be re-administered and advice will be given to see their general practitioner.
This information is then collected by the project leader who will collate the attendance of individuals at walks or other initiatives over a 3 monthly period and will then email/post to SCW, as with the registration details and initial Physical Activity Level form data.
Participant Information Spreadsheet
NEEDS WORK!!!! NOT FINSIHED YET!!
This tool allows you to store information about the people who participate in your walking scheme.
The information that you or the activity leader collects from the registration form, physical activity level form and session data collection forms will need to be inputted (as you gather it) into the provided. This spreadsheet will be emailed/posted to the support team each quarter.
For new members and for totally new projects, this data will be gathered on the forms provided by us which you’ll collate on to the Participant Information Spreadsheet and email/post on to the Support Team on a quarterly basis.
WHERE TO GO FOR SUPPORT
The Let’s Walk Cymru Support Team: Their job is to support you in making the monitoring process work well.
You can contact them confidentially, by phone or email, whenever you need to ask a question, or to talk something through. They are a small team, covering the whole of Wales, (and sometimes on holiday) and so are not always available. You will often find them in, but if not, leave a message and they’ll get back to you as soon as they can, usually within the week.
All projects should email or post their Participant Information Sheets on a quarterly basis (dates will be arranged once projects are ready to begin running walks or when funding is administered) to Hannah Richards (02920 338294).
- Research and Evaluation Department
Sports Council for Wales
FREEPOST CF3476
SophiaGardens
Cardiff
CF11 9SW
Other contacts are:
Becca Mattingley
Senior Research and Evaluation Officer
Tel:02920 338292
Email:
Shana Thomas
Senior Officer for Walking
Tel:02920338335
Email:
1
[1]Project Leader/Coordinator – Person with overall responsibility for the project.
[2] If you have not got access to Microsoft Excel or a computer then please contact us on 02920 338294.
[3]If a participant answers ‘yes’ to the question about having health concerns on the registration forms, they must also complete a Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR Q)(See Appendix ?). File this information for your reference. There is no need to send this information to SCW.
[4]By active SCW mean’s a registered participant that has participated in a session in the past 6 months.