GUIDANCE PACK FOR
MONITORING AND
EVALUATING YOUR
PROJECT
INDEX
Introduction
3
Why should you monitor and
evaluate?
3
Requirements of a Project Leader’s
role in Monitoring and Evaluation
4
 Project Data – Quantitative & Qualitative
4
 Project Leader Responsibilities
5
 Registration Forms
6
 Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire
(ParQ)
6
 Physical Activity Level Form
7
 Six Month Physical Activity Level Form
7-8
 Activity Register
9
 Excel: Participant Information Spreadsheet
10
Where to go for support
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INTRODUCTION
The Let’s Walk Cymru programme will have a strong focus on monitoring and
evaluation for two reasons:

To gather feedback from participants. Let’s Walk Cymru’s success will
be measured in terms of the involvement and empowerment of people
in the target groups.

To gather evidence of what works best so that future health and wellbeing programmes can fund projects using methods that most
effectively involve people.
As a Let’s Walk Cymru project leader1 you will be drawing out, gathering and
recording that information. This pack will be your guide and reference
through that process.
WHY SHOULD YOU MONITOR AND EVALUATE?
We want the monitoring of projects to be built into the everyday activities so
that it becomes part of what you do.
Monitoring and evaluation are important for two main reasons:
1. For learning and development.
Monitoring and evaluating your programme will help you assess how
well you are doing in order to help you do it better. It is about asking
what has happened and why – what is and what is not working. It is
about learning more about an organisation’s activities, and then using
that information to change things for the better.
2. For accountability – to show others that you are effective.
Funders and other ‘stakeholders’ want to know whether a project has
spent its money in the right way. There is pressure from funders to
provide them with ‘proof’ of success. Many projects have to respond to
this demand in order to survive.
(Source: Charities Evaluation Service (2002) First Steps in Monitoring and
Evaluation, London, Charities Evaluation Service available at www.cesvol.orh.uk)
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Project Leader/Coordinator – Person with overall responsibility for the project.
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REQUIREMENTS OF A PROJECT LEADER’S ROLE IN
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
Project leaders will be responsible for the collection and recording of
information:
1. Quantitative project data is about what happens when, and who takes
part. Quantitative means ‘things you can count and measure’.
Quantitative data from the Let’s Walk Cymru project activities will be used to
help demonstrate whether or not the programme succeeds in its aims. In
order to measure gains, information is needed about the individuals who are
taking part and their levels of activity when they first start walking or
participating with your project. This is called baseline data.
Project data will be gathered in three ways:



Registration Forms
Physical Activity Level Forms
Activity Register
This information should be inputted into an Excel2 Participant Information
Spreadsheet.
N.B. If your project does not include any led walks, please contact Hannah Richards on
02920 338294 or [email protected].
2. Qualitative project data is about collecting, analysing, and
interpreting data by observing what people do and say. This type of
research generates rich, detailed and valid (process) data that
contributes to an in-depth understanding of the context.
Qualitative data from the Let’s Walk Cymru project activities will be used to
help guide future process development of such funding schemes and to
identify why certain projects are successful as well as to give constructive
feedback as to how a project can be improved.
This type of research will not be undertaken with all projects. The Sports
Council will chose a certain number of projects to carry out an in depth study
which will include qualitative and quantitative research to evaluate the
specific project. Those chosen will be informed on a one to one basis as soon
as possible.
If you have not got access to Microsoft Excel or a computer then please contact us on
02920 338294.
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Project Leader Responsibilities
The following table outlines in a flow diagram what project leaders have to
do and when.
Project/Activity Leader Outputs
Project Data (Quantitative)
Frequency
Outputs
Within the 1st
Month of
funding =
existing
members
Registration
details and
attendance
details
already
collected
1st or 2nd
attendance of
every new
participant
Registration Form
(and if
appropriate
Physical Activity
Readiness
questionnaire)
Each Activity
Session
Six months into
the project
Activity Register
Collect a sample
of participants to
complete a follow
up physical
activity level form
Physical Activity
Form
Regularly enter all quantitative data
onto the Excel
Participant Information Spreadsheet
Email/post
information to
the Support
Team within
the first month
of LWC
funding.
At the end of each quarter email
or post the Central
Support Team a copy of the
completed
Participant Information Spreadsheet
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Post completed
hard copy
questionnaires to
SCW directly via
the FREEPOST
address.
Registration Forms
The registration forms will collect new walkers’ name, address and post code,
telephone number, email address, age, gender, disability, ethnicity,
language, background information as to where they heard about the group
and whether they would like to volunteer, as well as identifying health
concerns3.
The majority of this information collected on the registration forms is to
gather demographic information of the walking participants that attend your
walking initiatives so that the Sports Council for Wales (SCW) has meaningful
information to inform an evaluation of Let’s Walk Cymru (LWC). This is also
information, however, that you can use to keep records of your participants,
discover where best to advertise your project and identify whether
individuals would like to become involved in volunteering.
New Projects
This form is to be given to new participants on the first or second walk they
attend. This information is to be collected for all new walkers. If you have
an existing club, but have not collected registration details from members,
please use this form as well. Please send SCW this information on a
quarterly basis from when your project receives funding.
For
st
example, if your project receives funding on Aug 1 ; SCW would expect
registration details of participants on Nov 1st, Feb 1st, May 1st and so on.
Existing Projects
For existing projects and for those members that you have already collected
registration details from, there will be no need to re-register them using this
form. However, if your project is an existing project, please send SCW
registration details of existing members (in the format you have
collected it in) within the first month of receiving funding. This will
give SCW baseline information as to how many walkers are involved in your
project before LWC funding has been granted, therefore allowing the
evaluation to look at those numbers of participants which are a direct result
of the LWC funding only.
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If a participant answers ‘yes’ to the question about having health concerns on the
registration forms, they must also complete a Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire
(PAR Q) (See Appendix ?). File this information for your reference. There is no need to
send this information to SCW.
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Please note that it is your responsibility to explain to participants the
importance of collecting this information, but also to let them know that
when it is sent to the SCW support team it will be given code numbers, so
they will not be identified.
Registration forms should be completed by the participants themselves
where possible, but if, for example, they have difficulties due to literacy
levels, or language, it’s fine for you or the activity leader to help them, or do
it with them.
Physical Activity Level Form
The second form which will gather some important data for SCW is the
Physical Activity Level (PAL) form. This form will ask individuals to state
whether they think they are physically active and the regularity of this
physical activity. This information will provide important baseline data on
participants’ physical activity levels.
It is important that this information is gathered from participants
before they have had much chance to feel a benefit from the walking
clubs or walking initiatives of the project. This way, SCW will have a
baseline measure which will be compared with data collected in the future.
The primary reason for this is to assess whether a participants’ involvement
in a LWC funded project has increased their physical activity levels; a key
measure of success.
You need to explain clearly that the purpose of the physical activity level
data is to measure the value of the project and the effectiveness of the LWC
programme, and not them individually.
Every time a new member registers with the project, they will need to fill out
this form. If your project is existing and has less than 50 members then
please attempt to get everyone to complete this Physical Activity Level form.
SCW would like this information emailed/posted every quarter along
with the registration details.
If your project, however, has more then 50 existing members and you do not
have their physical activity levels to hand, only send SCW the registration
details you have as stated previously at the start of funding.
Six Month Physical Activity Form
At approximately six months into your project there is a need to gather the
information on the follow up Physical Activity Level (PAL) form (appendix ?)
from a sample of active4 registered individuals. This follow up form is
practically identical to the form new members were given at the start of their
involvement in the project. The use of this information is to see whether
By active SCW mean’s a registered participant that has participated in a session in the past
6 months.
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attending a LWC funded walking group has changed a group’s patterns of
exercise over a certain time frame.
This six months refers to the project rather than the individual. Therefore if
funding is received on Sept 1st; data will need to be collected in February,
rather than 6 months from when a particular individual starts.
If a new person registers at the time you are sending out the follow up PAL
form, please give them the initial PAL form only.
The table below outlines the minimum and target number of responses
needed to fulfil an adequate sample according to the size of your project.
Please remember this only refers to the follow up PAL form that will be
collected at the six month phase of your project funding.
For example, if your project had 325 active registered walkers, the minimum
number of responses required by SCW would be 125 and the target number
of responses required would be 225.
Number of Walkers
Minimum number if Target number
responses required
responses
of
150 walkers and below
50% of total number of
members
60% of total number of
members
151-300 walkers
40% of total number of
members
60% of total number of
members
301-500 walkers
125
225
501-750 walkers
150
250
751-1000 walkers
275
400
If you have more than 1000 active participants; please contact Hannah Richards.
02920 338294 or [email protected].
This is where information collected and filed from the registration details will
come in handy, i.e. their name and address.
Or, alternately ask for
individuals to fill out a form at the end of their walk.
We recognise that inputting this data may be time consuming and
suggest project leaders send the hard copies to SCW directly, hence
we would input this data accordingly for you.
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Activity Register
Each walk or initiative will need to have a register which will be able to show
how many participants there were at each session. This form will also
include the date of the session, its start and finish time, who the leader is,
the location of the session and type of session (e.g. walking group or walking
course etc), name and age of participants.
There will also be a box called CTH. This will only be relevant to walking
groups. The walk leader will ask walkers whether anybody’s health has
changed since the last walk. If someone’s health has changed they will tick
this box, the Par Q form will be re-administered and advice will be given to
see their general practitioner.
This information is then collected by the project leader who will
collate the attendance of individuals at walks or other initiatives over
a 3 monthly period and will then email/post to SCW, as with the
registration details and initial Physical Activity Level form data.
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Participant Information Spreadsheet
NEEDS WORK!!!! NOT FINSIHED YET!!
This tool allows you to store information about the people who participate in
your walking scheme.
The information that you or the activity leader collects from the registration
form, physical activity level form and session data collection forms will need
to be inputted (as you gather it) into the provided. This spreadsheet will be
emailed/posted to the support team each quarter.
For new members and for totally new projects, this data will be gathered on
the forms provided by us which you’ll collate on to the Participant
Information Spreadsheet and email/post on to the Support Team on a
quarterly basis.
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WHERE TO GO FOR SUPPORT
The Let’s Walk Cymru Support Team: Their job is to support you in
making the monitoring process work well.
You can contact them confidentially, by phone or email, whenever you need
to ask a question, or to talk something through. They are a small team,
covering the whole of Wales, (and sometimes on holiday) and so are not
always available. You will often find them in, but if not, leave a message and
they’ll get back to you as soon as they can, usually within the week.
All projects should email or post their Participant Information Sheets on a
quarterly basis (dates will be arranged once projects are ready to begin
running walks or when funding is administered) to Hannah Richards (02920
338294).

[email protected]

Research and Evaluation Department
Sports Council for Wales
FREEPOST CF3476
Sophia Gardens
Cardiff
CF11 9SW
Other contacts are:
Becca Mattingley
Senior Research and Evaluation Officer
Tel: 02920 338292
Email: [email protected]
Shana Thomas
Senior Officer for Walking
Tel: 02920 338335
Email: [email protected]
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