Evaluation attitudes and practices of Ohio Cooperative Extension Service county-level home economists

There was a need to determine if the attitudes about evaluation held by Ohio Cooperative Extension Service (OCES) county level home economists were similar to their evaluation practices. In this descriptive, correlational and comparative study, the evidence of relationships between the OCES county level home economists importance, knowledge, and skill perceptions of (1) five identified reasons for evaluating, (2) four identified components of objectives, (3) 27 identified evaluation techniques, and (4) seven Levels of Evidence of Program Impact were determined. Data from these analyses were used to calculate knowledge and skill discrepancy scores in an effort to determine if the home economists needed training to help improve their program evaluation performance.;Annual Reports of Results of Program Accomplishments and Progress for FY 81-82 which had been submitted by 49 randomly selected OCES county level home economists were examined by OCES users of evaluation data. This examination was made to determine the OCES county level home economists' evaluation practices.;Statistically significant relationships did exist between most of the variables in the categories of Reasons for Evaluating, and Components of Objectives. Relationships were found to exist only between those variables at the three highest levels in the Levels of Program Impact category. The home economists were found to have very limited knowledge about the evaluation techniques recommended for use in OCES program evaluation process. However, they were evaluating and using some of the evaluation techniques with which they were familiar.