After completing the Overall Summary Forms and curriculum analysis, it’s time to review
the results to make recommendations for curriculum selection or revision.
You will need to develop a selection or revision process that works best in your setting.
Here are some recommended steps:
Convene a meeting.
Schedule a meeting of the health education curriculum review committee to
discuss the completed HECAT analyses.
Include any additional individuals who will
be responsible for revising locally developed curricula.
Review the scores and comments.
Review the scores for the Preliminary Curriculum Considerations completed in Chapter 4 and
determine whether to eliminate any curricula based on concerns about the accuracy
and acceptability of content, feasibility of implementation, and cost.
Review the recommendations for how to overcome the problems that were identified.
Reach a consensus on final scores.
There should be consensus for the scores of the health topic modules for each curriculum
when reviewers’ scores are not consistent.
Focus the discussion on those items for which there is a difference of two or more points.
If consensus is not possible, the scores can be averaged.
If the scores are already consistent, use this opportunity to have
team members explain their scores.
Once consensus is achieved, the team can discuss identified strengths and weaknesses.
Identify important items.
The HECAT process doesn’t assume all scoring areas have the same value although the same
0-4 scores are assigned for each area.
Your team may decide that some criteria matter
more than others when selecting an appropriate curriculum.
For example, your team might consider refusal skills from the Standard 4 “communication
skills practice” score to be more important than the Standard 1 “knowledge expectations”
score when selecting a middle school alcohol abuse or sexual health curriculum.
It appears these scores have the same value on paper, but the committee might consider
this and other score areas as being more important when determining the curriculum that is selected.
Rank curricula.
If using the HECAT to review one curriculum, skip to the next step.
If comparing more than one curriculum, use the Multiple Curriculum Comparison Scores form.
Rank curricula from strongest to weakest.
Make curricula and analyses available to the public for comment, if required.
Drawing upon a health education curriculum review committee that represents a broad range
of school and community perspectives can help ensure that the analysis results and curriculum
recommendations match the interests of the public.
Sharing your analysis results with the public is even more transparent and demonstrates
confidence that your process was fair, objective,
and inclusive of others so the public can trust in the findings.
Review public comments if solicited, and consider whether the ranking of the curricula should
be revised based on the input received.
The HECAT coordinator and members of the review team should examine all public comments, considering
the implications of comments for ranking each curriculum.
Remember, though, that no single opinion should immediately override your objective
and systematic review committee process.
Use final ranking and public comments to make
curriculum recommendations for selection or improvement.
Use the final ranking to make recommendations for selecting a packaged curriculum or making
revisions to a locally developed curriculum.
Assign curriculum revisions, supplements, and improvements.
Revisions, supplements, or improvements to a curriculum should be assigned to a writing
team made up of review team members or other
health educators who have experience and expertise in writing curricula.
Now, let’s take a moment to check your knowledge on using the HECAT by answering a few questions.