PROGRAM DESIGN AND EVALUATION RESEARCH
As defined by the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology,
Applied Sociology is “any use (often client-centered) of the
sociological perspective and/or its tools in the understanding of,
intervention in, and/or enhancement of human social life.”
At CCI, this means research teams use a wide range of Sociological
Theories and Methodologies to help agencies understand the myriad
of social problems in our community, with the goal of improving the
quality of life for all citizens. CCI works with community
organizations, both large and small, on a personal level to provide
them with the results they need to succeed.

NEEDS AND ASSETS ASSESSMENT
An assessment of the needs and assets unique to a neighborhood, agency,
or program is a helpful tool in social science research. Such an
assessment provides the foundation from which tailored initiatives
can be formed and implemented. CCI uses a variety of data gathering
techniques for needs and assets assessments, such as telephone and
door-to-door surveys, face-to-face interviews, focus groups, and
community forums. The combination of these techniques assists the
research team in painting the most comprehensive picture for stakeholders.

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS) MAPPING
GIS is a system of hardware and software used for storage, retrieval,
mapping, and analysis of geographic data. Practitioners also regard
the total GIS as including the operating personnel and the data
that go into the system. CCI uses published and proprietary data
in a GIS to spatially examine social aspects for mapping and analysis.

DATA COLLECTION: FORMS, SURVEYS, FOCUS GROUPS, INTERVIEWS
CCI develops data collection instruments for each project as needed
to collect the quantitative and qualitative data. While forms are
mostly used by staff to collect data on the program, the survey, focus
group, and interview instruments are used by CCI evaluators to gather
information on the participants.

DATABASE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
Grant specific databases are created in Microsoft Access and based on
the data collection forms. Depending on the use, project staff and/or
CCI evaluators may enter data into the database. Databases are used to
take advantage of their capabilities to relate tables of information, to
increase the quality of data by decreasing entry errors and to provide
easy to use reports.

UTILIZE PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE
Microsoft Office Suite: Word, Excel, Access, Publisher, Project, Power Point

SPSS Statistical Package

ESRI Mapping: ArcView, ArcIMS

Adobe Suite: Dreamweaver, Photoshop

Web Applications: Websurveyor, PHP, MySQL