Evaluation of the Pre-Marriage Education Program of the State Welfare Organization of Iran: The Perspective of Provincial and Headquarter Decision-makers

Today, evaluation is almost the center of gravity of all educational quality policies and strategies. The present study aimed to evaluate the pre-marriage education program of the State Welfare Organization and its distance from the optimum level, according to the perspectives of provincial and headquarter decision-makers.

This is an applied, descriptive-survey, quantitative study. The statistical population consisted of four groups, including headquarter managers, headquarter experts, provincial prevention deputies, and provincial experts, with a total number of 70 people. Four researcher-made instruments were designed and used according to the groups. The instruments were rated based on a four-point Likert scale. The items were about context, input, process, product, short-term effects, mid-term effects, and long-term effects. The instruments, after being assessed for the psychometric properties, were distributed to the four groups to evaluate the pre-marriage education program. Data were analyzed based on the Gap analysis using standard score of correction.

According to the standard score of correction, the context subscale (indices of design background, briefing actions, and organizational strategy), the input subscale ( indices of instruction, content, and budget), and the product subscale (index of long-term impact) had relatively low utility and most needed to be reformed. On the other hand, the process subscale was relatively more favorable.

Given the priority of reform from the perspectives of the four sample groups, the most important action of decision-makers and managers in reviewing the program is to focus on redesigning and strengthening the infrastructure and re-targeting and determining organizational strategies for the program. A working group needs to be established consisting of scientific and executive agents from provincial and headquarter managers to use the experiences of national programs and the results of educational need assessments.