Executive Summary: Evaluation of the FETCH! Activity Guide

During the spring of 2006, American Institutes for Research (AIR) conducted an evaluation study on behalf of WGBH. The purpose of the study was to gather data related to the effectiveness of the FETCH! Activity Guide, which was designed to extend the teachings of a new children's show, "FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman. The four main study objectives were to: Assess the activities' appeal for children (for example, do children enjoy the activities, do they realize they are learning about science, etc.?) Assess whether the facilitators liked the Activity Guide and deemed it appropriate for their after-school settings, as well as whether the Guide increased their understanding of science concepts and procedures and helped them feel more comfortable leading science experiments due to its structure and information. Evaluate the effectiveness of the Guide in enhancing children's science content and procedural knowledge. Evaluate the effectiveness of the Guide in enhancing children's attitudes toward science. The study sample was a local, convenience sample, rather than a large-scale, random sample of after-school programs from across the country. Thus, the findings reported in this document are descriptive, and are not meant to be generalized to the entire population of after-school participants.