E. L. Hampton

Over the course of 3 years, the hunter education program in Virginia was evaluated to determine its performance, strengths, and weaknesses and to develop recommendations for improvement. Students gained about 16% in knowledge of hunting and hunting safety from the 6-hour course. Observations of dove hunters with and without hunter education training suggested that the hunter education program had no significant impact on hunter behavior. A naturalistic inquiry evaluation of the program, involving analysis of interviews with 57 persons involved in hunter education, indicated program...

The need for effective hunter education is great and growing. Program effectiveness should be evaluated by agency administrators and external authorities. Administrators can perform a self-evaluation, based on a new model of the ideal program developed by the Hunter Education Committee of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and the North American Association of Hunter Safety Coordinators. The model recognizes the role of external evaluation to penetrate the difficult questions of educational effectiveness of the program. Major concepts of educational evaluation,...