4. Monitoring/evaluation

Your monitoring and evaluation efforts will be determined by the objectives you set and by the way you design the contest phase. Here, we would simply like to provide a few ideas that might prove useful in one form or another.

The Scenarios questionnaire
The questionnaire completed by participants is a built-in evaluation mechanism in that it provides data on the total number of participants as well as male-female breakdown, location, age, education level, and other data on the young people who took part. That questionnaire can also provide feedback on your efforts to publicize the contest (by asking where participants heard about the contest), as well as information on the effectiveness of each partner structure in its efforts to distribute materials and stimulate participation (by asking where participants obtained the contest leaflet).
Focus groups with participants
The quality of the contest, its ability to generate discussion among friends and families, as well as its impact on young people's behavior-change processes can be evaluated in the context of focus-group discussions with participants at the conclusion of the contest. Holding a few such discussions with a range of young people halfway into the contest is a good monitoring strategy; it can provide the team with useful information that would allow you to adapt your contest strategy so as to achieve your objectives more effectively.
Focus-group discussions with non-participants
Focus-group discussions with young people who opted not to participate can help you to understand shortcomings in your distribution and motivational strategy.
Focus-group discussions with team members
Team members can provide important insights on the contest mechanics, on young people's reactions, on the impact of the contest at a macro level in the community at large, and on the value of the contest for their own organizations (including the generation of synergies with other structures).
You might also decide you want to hold focus group discussions with members of the wider community: parents, teachers, etc. in order to solicit their feedback.
Data from designated resource centers
If one of your objectives is to heighten the visibility of existing resource centers on HIV/AIDS and to increase the number of young people who use those centers, you might consider collecting relevant data from them before, during and after the contest. The data could be complemented by means of face-to-face discussions (based on a standardized catalogue of questions) with individuals working at those centers.

Input from the selection committees
Jurors can offer a unique perspective on the impact of the contest, as they have (in all likelihood) closely observed the contest itself, and they have read and discussed scores of the young people's contributions in a forum with specialists from a wide range of related fields.
Some further reflections about the evaluation of the contest:
One of the major challenges of evaluating the contest by means other than those described above is that there is no way of predicting in advance who will take part. Whether or not to participate is a personal decision on the part of those who hear about the contest. As a result, it is extremely difficult to implement before-and-after questionnaires to measure quantitatively the contest_s impact on participants_ knowledge, attitudes and behavior. You_d like to be fairly sure that at least one person and, if possible, a reasonable proportion of the group that is completing the first questionnaire will actually take part in the contest. If not, you have wasted your time.
One means of obtaining quantitative information about the impact of the contest on an individual group is, say, if you know in advance that a teacher is going to set the writing of a scenario as a compulsory assignment. That way, you can be sure that most of that class will participate. Comparison of the before-and-after questionnaires will give you clear evidence of the impact participating has had on those individuals_ knowledge, attitudes and practices in relation to HIV/AIDS. You will not, however, be able to say that the contest would have this same effect on all participants because the group was not selected in a random manner.
This is not to say that information from those who chose not to participate is not important. For a start, you may be surprised to find that the contest and the publicity surrounding it succeeding in getting people to talk and think about HIV/AIDS (if you use those indicators) even if they did not participate.
Another quantitative evaluation strategy you might like to consider is a time series survey. This involves implementing successive questionnaires within a specified community over the length of the project. It would measure the impact of successive elements of the project (contest, films, etc.). If implemented correctly it is a complex procedure, and if you are not very experienced in evaluation matters, you would need to engage the help of an evaluation specialist.