Adapting Word Association for Use as an Evaluation Technique

This paper outlines one approach for adapting the widely used word association technique for use as an evaluation measure. In this approach, project participants are presented with a number of stimulus words reflecting project objectives and are asked to give free associations to these terms. Responses are scored either by the nature of semantic content or by judgment of subjective quality and the resulting scores for pre and post administrations are statistically compared. The technique has been successfully employed in several evaluation studies, and has promise of providing the evaluator with an instrument that has rapidly alterable stimuli. (Author)