| Course | HD560 Health Education Evaluation and Research |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Evaluation question paper |
| Length | About 1,090 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Health Education |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HD560 Unit 2
From "Does It Work?" to Three Answerable Questions: A Unit 2 Evaluation Question Paper for a Free Hearing Aid Program
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
HD560: Health Education Evaluation and Research
Unit 2 Evaluation Question Paper
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Within Earshot, Tamsen County's aging agency and its funder are composite; the evaluation framework, scales and review cited are real.
Why the Question Cannot Be Answered as Written
"Does it work?" leaves every part of an evaluation undefined. Work for whom: everyone with hearing loss, or the low-income older adults the program enrolls? Compared with what: no hearing aids, or aids bought another way? At doing what: hearing better, feeling less lonely, staying healthier? Measured how, and when? A question with no answer to these parts invites the kind of report the agency issued last year, a before-and-after figure that could not show cause.
What Last Year's Report Teaches
Last year's report answered a question no one had defined. It compared participants' loneliness on entry with their loneliness on leaving, called the difference an effect and left the board no way to judge how much of it the program had earned. The new questions are written to avoid each of that report's problems. Naming a comparison group answers regression toward the mean and history. Naming the population as applicants, analyzed whether or not they finish, answers the loss of 52 people. Naming a single measure given the same way at both times answers the change from phone to in-person questioning. In this sense the questions are the first part of the design, not a step before it.
Who Will Use the Answers
The CDC Framework for Program Evaluation begins with the people who will use an evaluation (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 1999). Three users matter here. The agency's board must decide whether to continue the program after the current grant. The county commission, the main funder, must decide whether to expand it to a second senior center. The university audiology clinic wants to learn how much its fitting and follow-up schedule matters. The board's decision comes first, and its information need sets the primary question.
Who Will Not Be Asked
Before writing the questions, the evaluator listed whose answers would count. Applicants who are found ineligible at the hearing test are not part of the evaluation, because the program would not serve them. Older adults who never apply are outside it too. That boundary matters: the evaluation will say what the program does for people who seek it, not what it would do if offered to every older adult in the county. The board accepted that boundary, since it funds a program people apply to.
The Primary Question
For Tamsen County residents 65 or older who apply to Within Earshot, have household incomes below twice the poverty guideline and show mild to moderate loss on a hearing test, does being offered the program, compared with being placed on a six-month wait-list, reduce loneliness at six months, as measured by the short loneliness scale built from the UCLA instrument for population surveys (Hughes et al., 2004)?
Population: eligible applicants, not all older adults. Comparison: wait-listed applicants, which is possible because the program has more applicants than places. Outcome: loneliness, because the board and the funder named social connection as the program's purpose. Measure: a short, well-tested scale. Time point: six months, long enough for adjustment and use to settle, short enough that wait-listed applicants are not kept waiting longer than the program's capacity already requires.
A question becomes answerable when every word in it points to something the evaluation can count, and "work" is replaced by an outcome, a comparison and a date.
Secondary Question 1
Among the same applicants, does an offer of the program reduce self-reported hearing handicap at six months, compared with the wait-list, as measured by the ten-item screening version of the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly (Ventry & Weinstein, 1983)?
This question tests the first step in the program's logic. If hearing handicap does not improve, a change in loneliness is hard to attribute to hearing.
Secondary Question 2
Among applicants offered the program, how many hours a day are the hearing aids worn at one, three and six months, as recorded by the devices' own data logging, and does use relate to change in hearing handicap?
This question serves the audiology clinic. It describes delivery rather than effect, and it has no comparison group, which the paper states plainly.
Questions Considered and Dropped
The four CDC standards, utility, feasibility, propriety and accuracy, were used to judge other candidate questions (CDC, 1999).
Satisfaction with the program. Dropped on utility: no one named a decision that depends on it, and satisfaction would not show whether outcomes changed. A single item will be kept for the audiology clinic's quality review, outside the evaluation.
Effects on falls. Dropped on feasibility and accuracy: falls are too infrequent among 260 people over six months to estimate reliably, and self-reported falls are often misremembered.
Effects on cognitive decline. Dropped on feasibility: change in cognition takes years, beyond the six-month comparison.
Cost-effectiveness. Dropped on accuracy for now: the agency does not yet track staff time in a way that would support a reliable estimate. The paper recommends building that tracking for a future evaluation.
Effects by language group. Kept as a descriptive report rather than a question, because the Spanish-speaking group of about 60 applicants is too small to compare reliably.
How the Questions Fit Together
The primary question answers the board. The first secondary question tests the mechanism the program assumes, which also informs the commission's expansion decision. The second secondary question serves the clinic's interest in delivery. Each can be answered with the data the design will produce, and none requires measuring something the program does not claim to change.
Why Not a Longer List
A longer list of questions would please more people, but each added question costs assessor time, adds to the burden on older adults answering by phone and raises the chance of a false positive among many outcomes. The board's budget allows two assessments of about fifteen minutes each. The three questions fit inside that time with room for the contamination question and a short check on wellbeing. Anything more would have to come from records rather than from participants.
Limits
The questions assume the program will remain oversubscribed so that a wait-list exists. If applications fall, the comparison changes, and the primary question would need to be revised before data collection begins.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (1999). Framework for program evaluation in public health. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Recommendations and Reports, 48(RR-11), 1-40.
Hughes, M. E., Waite, L. J., Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2004). A short scale for measuring loneliness in large surveys: Results from two population-based studies. Research on Aging, 26(6), 655-672. https://doi.org/10.1177/0164027504268574
Ventry, I. M., & Weinstein, B. E. (1983). Identification of elderly people with hearing problems. ASHA, 25(7), 37-42.
Reading the HD 560 Unit 2 instructions
In Unit 2, students usually refine a broad evaluation request into a small set of specific questions. Prompts commonly ask for a primary question and a few secondary ones, an explanation of who will use the answers and a justification for questions left out. Begin with the users and the decisions they face, since those set priorities. Write each question so it names its population, comparison, outcome, measure and timing. Use the CDC Framework standards or a similar set to decide what to drop. Say what each question cannot answer. Connect the questions to problems in any earlier evaluation of the same program. Five to seven pages is typical for this paper in most sections.
How this HD560 Unit 2 example is built
The paper begins by showing why "Does it work?" has no answer as written, then explains how last year's before-and-after report failed for the same reason. Three users are named, the board, the county commission and the audiology clinic, with the board's decision setting the primary question. A section states whom the questions exclude. The primary question follows, with each part explained, and the highlighted sentence gives the principle behind it. Two secondary questions cover hearing handicap and hours of device use. Satisfaction, falls, cognition and cost-effectiveness are each dropped under a named standard. A section explains why the list stays short, and limits close the paper. Each dropped question is tied to the standard that removed it, so the board can see the reasoning.
Where the points sit in the HD560 Unit 2 rubric
Graders of an evaluation question paper look for questions that are specific and answerable, alignment with users' decisions, sound reasoning for what was left out and awareness of each question's limits. A primary question earns full credit when every component is named and measurable. Linking questions to real users and decisions shows the writer understands evaluation as a service, not an exercise. Dropping questions with a stated reason, using a recognized set of standards, often separates strong papers from adequate ones. Instructors also value honesty that a secondary question has no comparison group. Clarity of writing and correct APA citation of the framework and measures account for the remaining credit.
HD560 Unit 2 help: mistakes that cost points
The most common weakness is a primary question still built around a soft verb like "improve" or a word like "effective" without saying what will be measured. Another is a long list of questions that no budget could cover. Some papers name a measure but no comparison, or a comparison but no time point. Others skip the users entirely, which leaves no basis for choosing among questions. Writing the board's decision at the top of the page and testing each question against it keeps the paper on track. When your program's stakeholders want different things, list them with their decisions, and a writer can help you set the primary question.
Get an HD560 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
What program is your HD560 evaluation about, and who is waiting on the result? Tell us, then attach the Unit 2 prompt and rubric along with any stakeholder list you have. Within 24-48h a free first custom sample arrives, following your section's directions, that turns a broad question into ones an evaluation can actually answer. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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HD560 Unit 2 questions, answered
How many evaluation questions should the paper end with?
Usually one primary question and a small number of secondary ones, often two or three. More than that tends to spread a limited evaluation budget too thin. Some prompts fix the count. Whatever the count, state which question takes priority if time or money runs short. Secondary questions should still be answerable with the same data collection.
What are the CDC Framework standards?
The 1999 CDC Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health adopts four standards for judging an evaluation: utility, whether it serves users' information needs; feasibility, whether it is realistic; propriety, whether it is legal and ethical; and accuracy, whether it produces sound information. They also work well as a filter for candidate questions.
Should questions about participant satisfaction be included?
Only if someone will use the answer to make a decision. Satisfaction can inform program redesign, but it does not show whether outcomes changed and should not be presented as though it does. If you keep a satisfaction question, label it a process question and explain which decision it serves.
Where can I find a free HD560 Unit 2 sample paper?
A full Unit 2 evaluation question paper is posted here, turning a funder's "Does it work?" into three questions about a hearing aid program.
What makes an evaluation question answerable?
It names who is studied, what they are compared with, which outcome is measured, by what instrument and at what time. A question missing any of those parts invites a weak design.