The cadet program - Are we meeting our goals?

[RiverAux]

The CAP cadet program seems to be a little unusual in that we have actually set specific goals for what we want to do, which are found in CAPR 52-16. 

Leadership.  The goal of the Cadet Program's leadership element is to develop in cadets the ability to think independently and lead others in an atmosphere of teamwork and mutual respect.

Aerospace Education.  The goals of the Cadet Program's aerospace education element are to inspire in youth a love of aviation, space, and technology; provide them with a foundation in aerospace's scientific principles; and introduce them to aerospace career opportunities.

Physical Fitness.  The goal of the Cadet Program's physical fitness element is to develop in cadets a habit of regular exercise.

Moral Leadership.  The goal of the Cadet Program's moral leadership element is to develop in cadets a commitment to live CAP's Core Values, and the ability to think critically about moral and ethical issues.

Activities.   Goal. The goals of the Cadet Program's activities element are for cadets to apply their leadership skills, explore aerospace careers and display their overall enthusiasm for the cadet ethic.

The regulation goes on for each of these areas to describe methods of reaching the goals and how they are evaluated.  However, the evaluations are really focused more on the progress of each individual cadet through the steps of the program and don't really address whether or not the program as whole is being successful. 

This is in contrast to at least one other youth program, 4-H, which has done quite a bit of time actually thinking about what it is doing and what sort of results they get.  Take a look at this site http://www.national4-hheadquarters.gov/comm/4h_ydresearch.htm , which has some evaluation reports and a link to a database with hundreds of reports on the 4-H program.

Is anyone aware of any evaluations that CAP has done over the success of the program itself?  Obviously we do lots of assessments of how we administer the program through various inspections at Wing and squadron levels, but those don't look at whether we're doing any good. 

Is anyone aware of studies conducted by outside groups that may have included CAP in their assessment? 

How about studies related to our "competitors" (JROTC, ACA, Young Marines, etc.)?

With assessment and accountability becoming major parts of many youth and education-related programs, if we haven't done something like this, someone is probably going to be forcing us to at some point. 

[RiverAux]

Here are some JROTC evaluations

NJROTC 1992 http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA257513

JROTC 1998 http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA353782

[BillB]

My Air War College paper was an evaluation of the Cadet program. However, it's so far out of date it is no longer applicable. Florida Wing did an extensive evaluation during the 1990s. but again it's out of date. Any evaluation done before 2002 or there abouts, would not reflect the changes brought about with the any version 52-16 since the regulation was changed from 50-16.

[Dragoon]

The only metric we religiously keep is milestone award completion rate.  Which has only a minor bearing on the goals you mention.