Strengths And Limitations Of The Evaluation Approach

This essay will review the strengths and limitations of the evaluation approach used for the ACTIVate physical activity intervention. It will also cover recommendations for how the evaluation could be improved. The aim of the evaluation is to assess the effectiveness of the ACTIVate intervention for improving child physical activity levels, and to explore the factors that contribute to the observed outcomes. Physical activity interventions are important as it helps promote a better quality of life due to improved mental health and mood. Physical activity interventions at schools also implement physical activity in kids who can continue to stay active from a young age.
The design used is quasi-experimental. Because allocation is not random there
Direct observation is a key method to make sure everything is running smoothly. The researchers observed at least two sessions at each school to assess whether or not the sessions were being delivered properly. One of the observations was announced and the other unannounced. This is a strength as it allows them to know they're getting valid results, and also to make sure the intervention is being delivered as intended. Semi structured interviews were used at the end of the intervention. This is a good method to find out the teachers views on the intervention, what worked well and what challenges they faced. This is also a good way to find out what could be improved for future interventions. However, social desirability could be an issue here. Social desirability is when people provide answers that are acceptable, instead of offering their real views and opinions. A recommendation to further improve this would be for teachers to reflective log so they have a log of what happened so they don't forget stuff when it comes to the
This is important as it provides an increase in validity and reliability of the results. Without taking this step to prevent bias, results could be faulty and therefore, negatively impact the results and the intervention itself.
Ecological validity is high in this intervention as they are observing behaviour that occurs in a natural setting for year 4 children. Usually, the more control there is over participants the less ecological valid it is. For example, taking participants into a lab and observing their behaviour. This might affect their behaviour and therefore, generalizing this behaviour in to people in natural settings would be limited.
Exploring the participants views are important as it gives an understanding as to what is going well and what isn't. This is necessary to improve the intervention if they were to conduct it again. The evaluation doesn't explore the participants views and is therefore a big limitation. Questionnaires could be a recommendation to explore participants views. Also, the researchers could improve the evaluation by gathering reasons why participants dropped out. Again, this is important as it gives an indication as to what might be going wrong or what could be improved if the intervention was to happen