The Effectiveness of Workshops on Management Evaluation of Traffic Safety Programs

About the report:

Nine management evaluation workshops based on The Evaluation of Highway Traffic Safety Programs' A Manual for Managers were held in various cities throughout the United States by the Office of Manpower Development (NHTSA). The analysis reported here was undertaken on their behalf to determine the effect, if any, of the workshops on the knowledge of the attendees. Pre- and posttests designed by Dunlap and Associates, termed "interest surveys," were administered to one hundred sixty highway safety administrators, at the beginning and end of each workshop. It was generally found that the attendees who were evaluated experienced an increase in knowledge of the materials taught, as measured by the interest survey; however, any conclusions to be drawn from the analysis are influenced by the following limitations: (1) difficulty in making interworkshop comparisons due to the number of different variables involved for each workshop (i.e., type of student, type of instructor, workshop location, and attendance), (2) ambiguity of the test items, making direct objective scoring impossible and rating difficult, and (S) self-selection in test taking which could, have biased the sample of attendees evaluated.

Authors