YMCA’s Evaluation Proposal

YMCA’s Evaluation Proposal

Executive Summary

The proposal below entails the process of evaluation of the services offered by Young Men’s Christian Association-YMCA in improving the fitness of the global population. The organization’s headquarters is situated in New York, U.S.A. but it has ventured into other countries to benefit their citizens. The organization offers diet lessons, physical and physiological activities which are aimed at benefiting all people at no cost.  An evaluation is to be conducted on the organization’s performance to test its level of satisfaction it delivers to its clients. Different methodologies are to be used in order to boost the levels of credibility, integrity, and transparency. The evaluators are going to pick individuals from every sample to represent all the categories of people in the whole population to avoid uniformity of views.

Introduction

The main goal of this evaluation proposal is to evaluate a group fitness program at Young Men’s Christian Association-YMCA. This is the largest non- profit making organization with more than 2500 branches in the United States of America. The mission of the YMCA is to offer both health and social facilities to more than 18.9 million men, women, and children living in the US. Basically, the organization consists of all people regardless of race, gender, age and income disparities. Significantly, YMCA is credited for its decision to accommodate people of all social classes despite their inability to make payments in full and on time. Due to diversities in its membership structure, every branch of the YMCA has its own goals and programs to offer for the best of its customers. Excellent performance in this organization has pulled together interest from other countries globally, leading to its divergence in more than 120 countries.

YMCA offers free group fitness classes all over and it achieves to host more than 300 group fitness classes in a period of one month. It is up for a member to choose where they are best in and the category in which they would like to perform. This information is simply gotten from the instructor upon joining the YMCA group fitness programs. In all branches, YMCA helps members to perform at their own schedule, in other words, classes are available throughout and it is up for the members to fix themselves in the category they wish. Among the group fitness classes offered at the YMCA organization are; beginner classes, low impact classes, cardio, dance and cycle among many others. The beginner classes help the individuals who are in the initial process of the train to cope up with the structure of the program and also boost their discipline in adhering to the set framework of the organization.

Consequently, accompanying the classes are also the five elements of good health in any fitness organization. The organization has achieved to introduce these significant elements since they are core aspects of keeping the body fit. The first element is the aerobic fitness which is inclusive of moderate and vigorous activities which are aimed at improving the efficiency of the lungs, heart and the blood vessels. Strength training is another key component which is more concentrated on muscle fitness and bone strength (Hoeger, et al,2018). This helps an individual to manage and lose weight if need be. Moreover, it assists in building up strength which is used in daily activities. The core exercises aid in the protection of the member’s back and improves the coordination of the lower body movements with the upper body movements. In addition, the program offers stretching and flexibility activities which improve the motions in the majority of the body joints and promote a better posture. Stress and tension are also an added advantage in these activities. The program is also keen in ensuring that its members acquire a good balance even during their aging periods. It is inclusive of balance training which helps in maintaining an upright posture and balance during their routine activities.

The world’s population today has encountered many problems encountered from lack of physical exercises and this has become a threat to the population’s health. According to statistics, only one child in a group of three is physically active every day. Furthermore, less than five percent of the adults participate in the recommended 30 minutes of physical exercise each day. It is very depressing to learn that only 25-30 percent of adults between the ages of 60’s and 70’s are physically active and more than 85% of the adults do not meet the guidelines for both aerobic and muscle strengthening (Hoeger, et al,2018). A lot of queries arises when people complain of being attacked by chronic diseases such as cardiac failure, cardiomyopathy, hemophilia, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, dysthymia and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases when they can indulge themselves in physical fitness programs and avoid all these diseases (Hoeger, et al,2018). YMCA is very caring when it comes to fishing of money from people’s pockets that’s why it offers these services free of charge. With the help of other organizations, YMCA conducted a research and noticed how generations were being traumatized by these diseases and saw the need to provide awareness not only to the Americans citizens but also to the entire world.

Evaluating on the program’s perspective of trying to train people on basic skills on keeping the body fit and healthy, it has also done an exemplary work in analyzing the nutrition of its members (Posavac, 2015). Every individual is asked to fill a diet form based on the kind of diet they take during the day. This helps the organization’s nutritionists to study their intake of calories, cholesterol, fruits, and vitamins. Generally, for a body to function properly and keep away from chronic diseases it must be fed on a balanced diet with totally minimal negative effects. The program ensures that its members take U-turn in improving their nutrition by providing a better diet plan. Research has revealed that 70% of American’s diet exceed the recommended intake levels of added sugars, solid and saturated fats, refined grain and calories. In addition, over 70 million adults and about 13 million children in the US are living with obesity (Hoeger, et al,2018). The program is working to reduce these huge percentages by the year 2050 to very minimal percentages. Over the period YMCA has been in action it has been able to register more than 150000 obese individuals living in the U.S who include adults, children, and the aging group. Besides, it has been able to attract about 100,000 individuals on its branches to be educated on matters relating to nutrition which is one of the main achievements of the organization.

When evaluating the YMCA’s objectives, it will be a great idea of assessing how far it has achieved its goals (Lacy et al,2018). The evaluator should survey the members satisfactory in weight loss and management which is one of the aims of the program which helps individuals who are over-weight to cut off some weight in order to keep it at a healthy range. For those who are already in the healthy range, they are given proper training on how to avoid increasing and maintain their current weight. Trainers at the organization will aid the evaluators to assert individuals’ gratification in maintaining their weight to avoid burning excess calories in regular activities and exercises than the ones they consume to avoid weight loss (Lacy et al,2018). In the same context, global physical health is one of the key objectives of the program on the guidelines of evaluation since it works in ensuring that the individuals of the organization live a healthy lifestyle. Setting an objective to increase the strengthening of bones and muscles of the world’s generation has been an ultimate goal for the organization since a lot of people mostly those above 60 years are always complaining about backaches and inability to support themselves for a long duration.  Psychological health is a problematic torment to many individuals and will be evaluated on the basis of the consumers’ contentment since the program works at its level best in improving the mental health in addition to the physical well-being by stimulating the brain to improve an individual’s mood. Reduction of stress levels and enhancement of thinking and focus on regular exercises make a member feel more confident in appearance and strength through physical activities.

The research of the evaluation will include the children who joined the organization during its era of establishment and those who joined the program in the recent past so as to give their opinions on how the program has been of help to them. Also, men and women will be evaluated differently since their bodies react to physical activities differently. Aging adults will not be left out so that they can give their opinions on strengthening activities and if they are of any assistance to them. Individuals struggling with chronic diseases will be at the forefront to be evaluated due to their great need for physical activities (Morrow Jr et al,2015).

Methodology

I propose to use both qualitative and quantitative approaches in conducting the evaluation. In the quantitative method, a sample at least one of the members of each group of the program will be engaged in deep thoughts experiments to develop a clear storyline considering different contexts of their satisfaction (Lacy et al,2018). A close reading of the data collected by the evaluators will be used to validate and analyze how the members of YMCA are contented with the services offered in terms of the timing of the classes, variety of the classes and also the quality of the classes.

On the other hand, qualitative methods will include objective measurements, numerical and statistical data to be collected from different groups asserting their levels of satisfaction in the program (Morrow Jr et al,2015). Questionnaires and surveys will be conducted by asking open-ended questions so that the members can give a detailed information about their levels of interest in the program.

A sample from every category of individuals will be targeted in the process of evaluation since each population has unique views about the program. The categories in this context refer to children, men, women, people with chronic diseases and also the aged. Two individuals from each group in every category will be selected to represent the whole population.

In order to get a good and an informative matter, I will focus my attention on every group. I would make sure that I’m not gender bias by giving every sex an equal chance to volunteer in the survey. Providing open-ended structured questions in the emails of the selected individuals would make the process easier (Morrow Jr et al,2015). For those who are computer illiterate, I would provide hard copies of different questions relating to the quality and quantity of the services provided by YMCA. Additionally, interviewing of the member who has difficulty in expressing their answers will be sound recorded independently.

After the exercise of collecting data elapses. The sheets of questions will be collected individually for credibility and accountability purposes. Those individuals with emails will send them to a common email for analysis purposes. Afterward, the mean, mode and median of the data will be calculated for each survey in every sample. All the information will be electronically stored in the cloud storage whereby a strong password will be put in place.

The reliability and validity of the methods I’m proposing will not be compromised since the appropriate time scale for the collection of data will be selected in order to gather more information about YMCA (Posavac, 2015). Moreover, the method of selection of the samples to extract information from will have been wisely chosen so as to get the views from every group of individuals. Besides, no respondent will be pressured to give answers or any explanation against their will. Strategies adopted by the evaluators will enhance the credibility and integrity of the information passed to them. The selected individuals in the samples will be urged to answer the questionnaire or the interviews transparently since they are anonymous in order to boost their levels of honesty.

Although a structured framework for avoiding any cases of invalidity will be set, some members can agree to help each other through mailing to answer the questions (Posavac, 2015). This would threaten the credibility of the answers provided. The data collected will be able to be generalized so as to come up with a general feedback for the evaluation test. To improve the design, technological advancements in the method of collecting data can improve the accuracy of contextually-relevant information.

A sample of a questionnaire used in one of the methodologies process.

References

Lacy, A. C., & Williams, S. M. (2018). Measurement and evaluation in physical education and exercise science. Routledge.

Hoeger, W. W., Hoeger, S. A., Hoeger, C. I., & Fawson, A. L. (2018). Lifetime of Physical Fitness and Wellness. Cengage Learning.

Morrow Jr, J. R., Mood, D., Disch, J., & Kang, M. (2015). Measurement and Evaluation in Human Performance, 5E. Human Kinetics.

Posavac, E. (2015). Program evaluation: Methods and case studies. Routledge.