Cost worthiness evaluation

In a cost worthiness evaluation, the cost and resource requirements of an educational product are investigated. The costs of creating, implementing, and evaluating the product are measured and are compared to other

Definition

A cost worthiness evaluation is focused on identifying the actual, potential, and perceived costs of an educational product. Sometimes, these costs are compared to other products. Nonmonetary costs are often converted to actual money costs, including staff time, unpaid labor, facilities, and administration.

Additional Information

Knowing the costs of a product helps the designer stay within budget, provide a detailed description of the design of the product, and remain within the scope of design and development. Additionally, many purchasers of educational technologies now want cost worthiness studies so that they can make informed decisions about the cost of a product in relation to how well they work.

Costs of products can be measured in actual money via total amounts of a product's development, cost per participant, cost per classroom, cost per download, etc. If cost studies are done correctly, costs can additionally be measured as a ratio of cost per unit of change in learners, on average (such as how much the product costs per student to generate one half of an additional standard deviation of improvement, or how much it costs per student to have that student score an A versus a B).

The type of evaluation that is conducted and the methods that are used for cost worthiness evaluations are determined by the specific research questions that are asked in the evaluation plan.

Types of cost worthiness evaluations:

• Cost/benefit analysis. A cost/benefit analysis investigates all of the financial and social costs of implementing a new technology or educational product in comparison to the benefits that would be gained from implementing it. It is often a descriptive type evaluation that discusses how the benefits or the costs outweigh each other for a pending decision in an organization or school, such as the implementation of a new learning product or expensive educational technology.
• Cost analysis. In a cost analysis, evaluators will calculate all potential and actual costs of developing, using, maintaining, and evaluating the product. This includes the up-front costs of development, the costs of implementing the product and training any facilitators that are needed, and the costs of ongoing maintenance that are needed. Evaluation costs are also included, especially when evaluation is ongoing or formative in nature. Non-financial costs (i.e., resources, facilities and administration, in-kind goods and services, technology, staff time, unpaid development time) are also included and are converted into monetary amounts.
• Cost effectiveness analysis. These types of more complex analyses compare the overall cost of a product (as determined in a cost analysis) and convert it to a figure of cost per unit of change in the learner. These studies interpret the cost as a ratio of the cost per participant per unit of change - with the unit of change being defined by the evaluator. This requires the learning objectives to be clearly defined and measured in an evaluation so that the total cost can be divided by the learning outcomes measurement. For instance, a college-level course would measure the cost effectiveness of an educational technology tool to help with collaboration by stating that for every grade letter change (say, from a B to an A), the cost per student is $200. This could help teachers and administrators compare products to see which products bring about a positive learning outcome for which price.
• Price or resource comparison. In this type of analysis, the calculated financial or resource costs are directly compared to multiple products, often without much regard to what different features they provide or a comparison of their learning objectives (like in a cost effectiveness analysis). Product costs are simply compared across each other.

Tips and Tricks

• Including a cost analysis is the simplest way to demonstrate how much your product will actually cost, both in the initial development costs and the ongoing implementation and maintenance costs. With some products, there will need to be a return on investment in the amount of revenue that is brought in from the learning product, so a cost analysis is essential to know how much needs to be charged per user to break even on the initial investment.
• A basic cost analysis will help your team better understand the development constraints around the project. An honest cost analysis will reveal additional constraints for your project and how it aligns with your budget - which is a very helpful thing to have!
• Cost effectiveness analyses can be helpful when convincing decision makers as to whether to purchase or adopt your educational product. By demonstrating that the product can bring a positive change to learners, you can also show how much the product costs to bring about that positive change in comparison to an alternative product. Sometimes, extra costs for a better improved performance is worth it to decision makers - and they need this information to make an informed decision.

Related Concepts

• Evaluation and assessment
• Constraints
• Research question

Examples

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