Evaluating Healthy Marriage Programs

Many different types of marriage and relationship education are currently being tested in the field. Their future success and funding is related to good program evaluation. Various methodologies (including process evaluation and outcome evaluation) are important to the field. However these different strategies can have competing goals. Regardless of your evaluation methods or goals, whether you are starting to design an evaluation or writing up your final results, the NHMRC is committed to providing you with resources to strengthen and increase the rigor of your program evaluation. On this site, you will find program evaluation tools; published evaluation articles, and links to additional resources designed to provide evaluation support.

Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Evaluators Community of Practice

Soon the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center (NHRMC) will offer a space where program evaluators can go to exchange ideas with other evaluators working with ACF-funded healthy marriage programs. In the Community of Practice, you can post or respond to questions on any topic or issue including survey design, measurement, evaluation models, confidentiality, permission for evaluation and data collection options, tracking participants, measuring outputs and outcomes, maintaining program fidelity, explaining results to non-statisticians, data analysis, managing a comparison group, controlling for program attrition, report writing, publishing, upcoming conferences and more. Please note that the Community of Practice is a password protected site. Check with your healthy marriage program manager to receive your grant's password (available from your grant's federal project officer).
Resources for Evaluators

Program evaluation can sometimes feel like a large, trial and error project. Much like the recipe for a healthy marriage, there is a lot the field stills needs to learn and develop, like reliable output and outcome measures for various types of people and program structures. Although the NHMRC doesn't have all of the answers, we are committed to helping you design and implement the evaluation best suited to your program's needs and to conduct your work in such a way as to forward the healthy marriage field specifically and the realm of program evaluation more generally.

Topics on this Page:

Evaluation Textbooks and General Resources
Logic Model Resources
Evaluation Model Design Resources
Human Subjects and Institutional Review Board Resources
Measurement Resources
Survey Design Resources
Data Analysis Resources
Reporting and Results Implications Resources
A Selection of Peer-Reviewed, Published Marriage Education Evaluations

Evaluation Textbooks and General Resources

Program Development and Evaluation from the University of Wisconsin-Extension, Evaluation Resources
CDC Evaluation Working Group Resources
Weiss, C. (1998). Evaluation (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NM: Prentice Hall.

Logic Model Resources

Evaluation Model Design Resources

Human Subjects and Institutional Review Board Resources

Measurement Resources

Child Trends, "What is Healthy Marriage? Defining the Concept"
Family & Child Well-Being Research Network Publications
"Conceptualizing and Measureing a Construct of Marital Values" (PDF)
FRIENDS National Resource Center for CBCAP (PDF)
Ahlborg, T., L.O. Persson and L.R.M. Hallberg. (2005). Assessing the quality of the dyadic relationship in first-time parents: Development of a new instrument. Journal of Family Nursing, 11(1): 19-37.
Cron, E.A. (2000). Couple Rating Scale: Clarifying problems. The Family Journal, 8(3): 302-304.
Jones, W.H., J.M. Adams, and J.O. Berry. (1995). A psychometric exploration of marital satisfaction and commitment. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 10(4): 923-932.
Lowell, K.E. and J.J. Conley. (1987). Personality and compatibility: A prospective analysis of marital stability and marital satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(1), 27-40.
Mikulincer, M., et al. (2002). Attachment security in couple relationships. A systemic model and its implication for family dynamics. Family Process, 41(3): 405-434.
Moore, K.A. and L.H. Lippman (Eds.). (2005). What do children need to flourish? Conceptualizing and measuring indicators of positive development. The Search Institute Series on Developmentally Attentive Community and Society, Vol. 3
Roach, A.J., L.P. Frazier, and S.R. Bowden. (1981). The Marital Satisfaction Scale: Development of a measure for intervention research. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 43(3): 537-546.
Vaughn, M.J. and M.E.M. Baier. (1999). Reliability and validity of the Relationship Assessment Scale. American Journal of Family Therapy, 27(2): 137-147.
West, C.E. (2005). Clinical utility and validation of the Couple's Communicative Evaluation Scale. Psychological Reports, 97(2): 599-622.

Survey Design Resources

Data Analysis Resources

What Is Qualitative Analysis?
Covariance Designs: Design Notation
Dealing with Messy Data: Analyzing Pre- and Post- test Assessment Results in the Real World (PDF)
Center for Program Evaluation: Bibliography on Data Analysis
Drafting an Analysis Plan
Langbein, L. (2006). Public Program Evaluation: A Statistical Guide. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.

Reporting and Results Implications Resources

A Selection of Peer-Reviewed, Published Marriage Education Evaluations

Carroll, J.S. and W.J. Doherty. (2003). Evaluating the effectiveness of premarital prevention programs: A meta-analytic review of outcome research. Family Relations, 52(2): 105-118.
Gardner, S.P., K. Giese, and S.M. Parrott. (2004). Evaluation of the connections: Relationships and marriage curriculum. Family Relations, 53(5): 521'527.
Hahlweg, K., et al. (1998). Prevention of marital distress: Results of a German prospective longitudinal study. Journal of Family Psychology, 12(4): 543-556.
Halford, W.K, et al. (2004). Benefits of flexible delivery relationship education: An evaluation of the "Couple CARE" program. Family Relations, 53(5): 469-476.
Hawkins, A.J., et al. (2006). The "Marriage Moments" program for couples transitioning to parenthood: Divergent conclusions from formative and outcome evaluation data. Journal of Family Psychology, 20(4): 561-570.
Markman, H.J., et al. (2004). Use of an empirically based marriage education program by religious organizations: Results of a dissemination trial. Family Relations, 53(5): 504-512.
Nickols, S.A., D.G. Fournier and S.Y. Nickols. (1986). Evaluation of a preparation for marriage workshop. Family Relations, 35(4): 563-571.
Rowden, T.J. S.M. Harris and R.F. Stahmann. (2006). Group premarital counseling using a premarital assessment questionnaire: Evaluation from group leaders. American Journal of Family Therapy, 34(1): 47-61.
Shapiro, A.F. and J.M. Gottman. (2005). Effects on marriage of a psycho-communicative-educational intervention with couples undergoing the transition to parenthood: Evaluation at 1 year post-intervention. Journal of Family Communication, 5(1): 1-24.
Stanley, S.M., et al. (2005). Dissemination and evaluation of marriage education in the Army. Family Process, 44(2): 187-201.