OTIS Evaluation Guide (PDF) - California Department of Public Health

Part D. Writing an Evaluation Summary Narrative
The evaluation narrative serves two purposes: 1) it provides a rationale for the major components of your
evaluation plan, and 2) it embellishes details about the evaluation design and activities that are not covered
in the OTIS evaluation questions. To illustrate, a sample Narrative follows each sample evaluation plan in the
accompanying CD. Here are some tips to help you write the Narrative.
1. The Opening Paragraph
A brief rationale statement on why you chose the particular objective and intervention activities will help the
readers (reviewers) to understand your evaluation plan. The type of evaluation design not only depends on
the type of objective, but also, evaluation activities related to the intervention activities selected to achieve the
objective. Then, in one or two sentences summarize the type of plan and type of data collection you plan to
conduct.
2. Chronologically Describe the Evaluation Activities
When you make your evaluation plan, most likely you will follow a timeline to think through all the steps.
Similarly, a chronological description of your plan in the Narrative will help the readers to appreciate your
evaluation design in an easy-to-follow format. For example, you may want to start with describing the study
design, followed by survey instrument development, sampling consideration, and preparation efforts (e.g.,
trainings) that are related to the data collection.
3. Outcome Data Collection and Process Data Collection
For an objective that requires data collection of both outcome and process data, which one should be
described first? The answer is “it depends.”
• If your objective is only dealing with policy implementation or individual behavior change such as
cessation, you may also have process evaluation activities that can help you design or improve your
intervention plan. In this case, you may want to talk about the process data collection after the outcome
data collection.
• If you have process evaluation activities that are related to the outcome data collection, such as
training for interviewers or a focus group to design the survey instrument, you should chronologically
describe them while you talk about outcome data collection.
• If your objective deals with policy adoption AND policy implementation, you should describe all the
process data collection activities that relate to policy adoption first.
4. Rationale, Rationale, Rationale
Usually, you don’t have many opportunities to specify the rationale for your evaluation plan in the OTIS Scope
of Work. This narrative is the best place to introduce the background, theory, and assumptions on which your
evaluation plan is built. An excellent resource to help you describe how your approach or “theory of change”
helps move tobacco control forward is, “Theory at a Glance- A Guide for Health Promotion Practice” that is
put out by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
This document can be found here:
http://www.cancer.gov/PDF/481f5d53-63df-41bc-bfaf-5aa48ee1da4d/TAAG3.pdf (accessed March 2007)
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