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Marisa Harrison, MPH in Global Health

Marisa Harrison – MPH in Global Health
Practicum Site: Health Alliance International

This project helped me apply skills I had begun building in the Summer of 2008 when I helped conduct a similar survey in Timor-Leste. I feel that I successfully

  • Identified appropriate variables relevant to HLI's program and survey;
  • Determined appropriate use of data and statistical methods for problem identification and resolution, and program planning, implementation and evaluation;
  • Adaption and implementation of effective training program for survey interviewers

I do not feel that I went beyond my Individual Learning Objectives, but having the experience of adapting similar tools and approaches was a valuable look at real-life evaluation work.

In many ways, this work went beyond my previous experience as well—I was responsible for designing and conducting the training workshop for the interviewers (whereas the last time I helped in the design but did not conduct any sessions), and built the data entry system from scratch. I feel comfortable managing both of these aspects of data collection and utilization.

Personally, I think it may have been useful to participate in the implementation of the survey in Rwanda. It is difficult to provide recommendations on the quality or validity of the survey tool itself when I was unable to see the interviews take place or ask questions of the interviewers.

I would refer here again to the added confidence I now have in my skills of survey design and data management.

Karl Weyrauch and HLI are enthusiastic to continue working with MPH students in the future. They have a need for future monitoring and evaluation assistance and perhaps other programmatic options could be explored.

This project would have been better with more preparation time. Trying to accomplish a one month turnaround on a survey project is a little extreme if not treated as a full time job. It is a good idea for students on international projects to consider lag time in communicating overseas and difficulties in gathering information quickly. When choosing whether to go abroad or to do work solely from Seattle, bear in mind that you will not be able to witness the project being conducted and get to feel the "gritty" situation on the ground