REACH-SW - Evaluation Results

Over the 5 year period over which REACH-SW was developed, more than a dozen evaluation activities were conducted to solicit input from representative users, social work educators, on the content , design and utility of the program. (See Table 1 for a listing of these activities.) The ongoing feedback obtained from these numerous evaluation activities, including focus group discussions and pilot tests, were integrated into each subsequent draft of the REACH-SW materials over the lifetime of product development. The final REACH-SW product reflects this very detailed feedback and useful feedback. Click here for a summary of the pilot test of REACH-SW materials.

Outcome Evaluation of Final Versions of REACH-SW CD-ROMs (click here for a full summary of the outcome evaluation)

In the 2007-2008 academic year, we conducted an outcome evaluation to determine the effectiveness of the final version of the REACH-SW program in meeting its goals of:

(1) increasing social work instructors' knowledge about EBP, positive attitudes about the use of EBP in social work practice, and self efficacy for teaching EBP in social work courses, and

(2) increasing students' knowledge about EBP.

Thirty-five social work instructors (n = 35) and their students (N = 243) from 35 different colleges and Universities around the nation participated in this study.

Table 1. Phase I Evaluation Activities
Focus Groups to Gather Feedback on Phase I REACH-SW CD-ROM Prototype	MSW Faculty at APM in Anaheim, March 2003 Baccalaureate Faculty at BPD in Detroit, November 2004 Doctoral Program Chairs at SSWR in Miami, January 2005 Two Groups of Doctoral Students at SSWR in Miami, January 2005
In-Person Advisory Committee Meetings	Social Work educators, NIMH staff, project staff in Silver Spring, MD, May 2005 Advisory Panel Members, NIMH staff, project staff in Silver Spring, MD, July 2005 Advisory Panel Members, NIMH staff, project staff in Silver Spring, MD, July 2006
Focus Groups to Gather Feedback on Beta Version of REACH-SW CD-ROMs	Baccalaureate faculty at CSWE in Chicago, March 2006 Master's faculty at CSWE in Chicago, March 2006 Advanced-level graduate students at CSWE in Chicago, March 2006 Mixed bachelor's- and master's-level faculty at CSWE in Chicago, March 2006
Workshops to Gather Additional Feedback on Beta Version of REACH-SW CD-ROMs	Baccalaureate Faculty at BPD in Los Angeles, November 2006 Advanced-level graduate students at SSWR in San Francisco, January 2007
Pilot Study of Beta Versions of REACH-SW CD-ROMs	Baccalaureate and Master's Faculty from 16 Social Work programs around the nation, Spring 2007

Results of the evaluation indicate that REACH-SW is an effective, user-friendly tool that successfully supports social work faculty in infusing EBP content and principles in social work courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Some highlights of the results include:

Students of instructors who used the REACH-SW program in their courses demonstrated significantly larger increases in knowledge about EBP than those whose instructors did not use the REACH-SW program materials.
Although due to OMB restrictions, our faculty sample size was too small to conduct any statistical analyses, trends in these data indicate that instructors exposed to the REACH-SW training program experience increases in knowledge about EBP and self-efficacy for teaching these topics.
When asked about specific REACH-SW resources that their instructors had used, students indicated that the REACH-SW resources were clear, concise, easy to understand, and of high quality. The student handouts specifically stood out as being both straightforward and easy to incorporate into actual practice settings.
Faculty overwhelmingly reported positive opinions about the REACH-SW CD-ROM, indicating that they believed the information on the CD-ROM was clear, easy to use, and could be easily integrated into existing social work courses to more effectively teach social work students about EBP.

Click here for a full summary of the outcome evaluation.