Joseph Lucente
Ohio State University Extension
Ohio Sea Grant College Program
One Government Center, Suite 550
Toledo, OH 43604
(419) 213-2028, (419) 213-4241 fax

This presentation will share how a retrospective pretest can be used to evaluate an ongoing community leadership program for elected, volunteer and professional staff that serves the public sector. Participants will receive the eleven-module curriculum, the program’s theoretical framework flowchart, sample evaluation instruments, and data on evaluations from The Ohio Local Government Leadership Academy.

The Academy was designed for public officials to explore the variety of important dimensions that provide a framework for their actions. Each dimension explores legal and social constraints, conventional wisdom, best practices, and insights provided by others who are experienced in each dimension of the curriculum.

Use of a retrospective pretest-type program evaluation provides educators an opportunity to better gauge the participants’ perceptions of their basic knowledge levels on a particular topic as well as their perceptions of knowledge levels after instructional intervention. Self-reported information enables one to measure change in knowledge level and better document impact of instruction as a result. The premise is changes in perceptions of roles and conduct will potentially change behavior. The instrument to measure change was developed specifically for this leadership program.

This form of evaluation has enabled the program director to better gauge a perspective of community leaders’ understanding of leadership development curricula. Since 2002, retrospective pre/post test surveys indicated fifty-three participants have increased their overall knowledge in local government leadership by 86% as a direct result of this program.

PowerPoint Presentation (PDF format, 298 kb)