Youth evaluation: Web-based tools, data collection and impact reports for nutrition and physical activity education programs

Purpose: To develop a standard set of age-appropriate evaluation tools that could be used to measure nutrition and physical activity knowledge, skills and behavior changes of youth receiving education programs on these topics. Methods: Multi-state university teams identified the key-learning concepts to be included in the overall nutrition education programs, and developed evaluation tools to measure knowledge gained and behaviors changed as a result of the formative development, followed by pilot testing in multiple states and for multiple delivery and implementation strategies. Testing included sample groups who did not receive the intervention compared to those who did. Results: Sets of instruments have been developed and tested for use with pre-school and early school-aged children, which can be used in group settings, or for individuals. Conclusion: A web-based repository has been created, which allows users to search for relevant tools, review tool development documentation, download the tool, and then capture the results from students, compute and print impact reports. The end-product will be demonstrated. Broad use of this resource will facilitate comparisons between various programs and allow for the inclusion of additional tools for other ages, programs and countries.