Campaigns to End Violence against Women and Girls - Virtual ...

� Keep it simple. Formulate questions in a way that is easily understandable, leaving
as little room as possible for interpretation. Avoid terms that require specific
knowledge.
� Keep it open. Avoid language that suggests what your opinion is or what would be
the correct answer (e.g. “Don’t you think that….”).
� One concept per question. Never try to measure two different things through a
single question, and make sure that possible responses match the question (e.g.
Please rate the design and content of poster XY on a scale from 1 to 6, where 1
means “like it very much” and 6 means “don’t like it at all”.) Otherwise results will be
unreliable.
� Start with something interesting. The first questions should raise the respondent’s
interest in participating. Avoid starting with sensitive questions or questions that are
difficult to answer (e.g. normative questions of the type “do you think violence against
women can be justified?”).
� Pre-test the questionnaire with members of the target audience and adapt it as
necessary.
Examples: Surveys have been used to assess impact on attitudes and knowledge in
various campaign evaluations, e.g. in the impact evaluation of the Sonke Gender Justice
Network’s “One Man Can” Campaign in the Limpopo, Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal
Provinces, South Africa, or the impact evaluation of the NSW (Australia) Statewide
campaign to Reduce Violence against Women.
The evaluation reports are available online:
� Colvin, Christopher J., Report on the Impact of Sonke Gender Justice Network’s
“One Man Can” Campaign in the Limpopo, Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal
Provinces, South Africa, Sonke Gender Justice Network, 2009.
� Hubert, Carol, Violence against Women: It’s against all the rules, Evaluation of the
NSW Statewide Campaign to Reduce Violence against Women, Violence against
Women Specialist Unit, NSW Attorney General’s Department, 2002.
SPECIAL TOOLS TO EVALUATE MASS COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES
A range of tools are available to evaluate mass communication efforts. This list provides
a few relatively simple tools.
Website monitoring
Software can track “hits” on the campaign website and their approximate origin, and
detect website usage patterns. Websites can display simple surveys, e.g. asking users
to express their opinion on a specific subject, and track variation in the answers over
time. Other interactive tools and web 2.0 activities (e.g. the social web) can be used to
solicit comments from target group members which can be analyzed as part of an
evaluation.
Example: The Choose Respect campaign, by the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), is a national prevention effort to help parents, caregivers, older teens,
educators, and other caring adults motivate teens to challenge harmful beliefs about
dating violence and take steps to form healthy and respectful relationships. Its website
offers information and resources for use at home, at school, and in the community, such
as the Choose Respect playbook, an activity guide for parents, educators and
community members to engage teens on teen dating violence topics, and Dating
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Campaigns December 2011