“The Extension Education Evaluation Award is awarded for an evaluation of outstanding quality. This team has established the gold standard to improve Extension program evaluation and provide accountability for public funds invested in the UC Master Gardener Program.”
- Deanne Meyer, Interim Associate Vice President
Congratulations to our UC Master Gardener community! Our program is honored to have received the Excellence in Extension Program Evaluation Award from the American Evaluation Association. This award is given for an evaluation of outstanding quality. Criteria for excellence in program evaluation are accuracy, feasibility, propriety and utility, with particular emphasis placed on utility in improving Extension programs, policies and/or accountability.
What makes our statewide evaluation award-winning? Aggregating data from a state with diverse geographic and climactic variability is a challenge. Add to that a need to determine the impact for a large statewide program delivered locally and you have a complex system that you need to bring understanding to. Working together with the UC ANR Office of Program Planning and Evaluation, our UC Master Gardener community developed a statewide evaluation to quantify and communicate our program outcomes. This effort helps us understand and communicate the benefit of volunteer-led education efforts and document behavior changes of participants to attend our public education events.
This evaluation approach was the first of its kind reported in the literature and serves as the gold standard for evaluation for Extension Master Gardener Programs across the country to replicate locally. California is now in our fifth year of collecting data. The information we collect is reported to the US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture as part of our annual reporting requirements.