Summary:
Think Active felt the evaluation of their Sport Unlimited Initiative was vitally important to the development of the project and, in December 2008, commissioned Sport Structures Ltd to evaluate the projects delivered throughout the Spring term 2009.
The evaluation aimed to draw together evidence from the programme in relation to the experiences of young people and to identify lessons learnt. In addition, the evaluation provided recommendations for the development of evaluation resources for Think Active.
Approach:
The evaluation was undertaken by primary data collection with a sample of projects. The project sample was established through an assessment of the projects in relation to their location, type of sport offered, anticipated size of group, target age group. From 110 projects 34 projects were invited to be part of the evaluation process with the intention of visiting 18 projects.
The evaluation included visits to the projects to undertake focus group sessions and the distribution of pre and post evaluation forms.
The visits to projects included specifically designed focus group consultation sessions with young people. The sessions were facilitative in approach, looking to capture the experiences of young people through a variety of age-appropriate feedback tasks in a setting that enabled them to express their views, opinions and ideas on the project.
Outcome:
Sport England established a Sport Unlimited Evaluation website to enable CSPs to access templates and information to help them with their evaluation projects. The pre and post evaluation form template was used to provide further insight into the perceptions of young people involved with the project sample.
The pre and post evaluation forms, evaluation consent forms along with simple directions were administered to project leads for distribution to the project coaches/activity leaders.