Evaluating the impact of a conference

A comprehensive five-phase evaluation of the first Conference on Citizen CPR was implemented to measure its educational value and impact on attitudes regarding key issues in the lay CPR movement. Pre- and post-conference surveys of 480 members of the national CPR community and 165 conference participants along with an on-site evaluation of 152 participants indicated that participants felt that new and relevant information was presented and the conference resulted in little change in the attitudes of either participants or members of the national CPR community. The data reaffirm the educational value of conferences as new information was disseminated easily. However, the data raise questions about the impact conferences have upon attitudes, as only minor changes were reported. Weaknesses in the evaluation design are discussed, and recommendations for future conference evaluations are presented.