About Surveys and Assessment
Assessment is not simply a single step done at the conclusion of a program or initiative to determine effectiveness. Instead, it should be thought of a continuous cycle that is part of every step in a project’s life. This cycle can be broken down into five primary stages.
Step 1: Strategize
As you are building a program, think about the desired outcomes. Ask yourself how and when you might be able to conduct an investigation. If you want to find out if a specific program had an impact on student familiarity with a topic, you may want to implement a pre/post test survey. This requires an assessment before your program even takes place, something that would not be possible if assessment is left until the end.
Step 2: Investigate
There are various methods of gathering information through assessment. These tools or investigations are things like surveys, focus groups, and individual interviews. You want to make sure that you pick the most appropriate format for obtaining answers to your questions, which can vary depending on the frequency, size, and type of program.
Step 3: Analyze
Once you have conducted an investigation it is important to spend time analyzing the information. You want to review your data and determine how it answers your questions and goals. Areas to consider are efficacy, satisfaction, learning outcomes and group differences among students/attendees.
Step 4: Share
Once you have conducted an investigation and analyzed the data, it is important to share that information with other partners that may benefit from it. How results are disseminated will vary based on your audience. This could range from a small summary statement to a detailed report containing graphs and charts.
Step 5: Take Action
The final stage of the assessment cycle is to take any information that you have gained as a result of the assessment process and take action on it. This could mean that you adjust particular aspects of a single program or rethink an entire strategy. The important part is that you are using the information to improve the effectiveness of the program to better serve the student.
Types of Assessment
Formative v. Summative
Formative Assessment is conducted throughout a project, event or service to improve the project or event for that particular group of attendees. For example, if you are facilitating a service learning training and halfway through poll the attendees to see who has conducted service learning work domestically, you may be conducting a formative assessment. If you find that over half of them have never served domestically you may want to focus more of the program on those opportunities. In other words, with a formative assessment, you use the information to help improve your event or activity for that particular group of attendees while the event is ongoing.
Summative Assessment occurs at the end or summation of an event or service. If at the end of your service learning training you ask attendees to describe the difference between domestic and global service learning opportunities this may help you see what the attendees mastered. For example, you may find that 80% of the attendees could correctly describe the differences between domestic and global service learning opportunities. If that was one of your learning outcomes, this is a great result that shows your 80% of program attendees mastered this concept! However, if you find that few students mastered this, there is not a whole lot you can do for this group of attendees — hence why this is a summative assessment. You may take some notes on how to improve your training for future groups, but with a summative assessment the current program or project is finished and cannot be changed
Direct v. Indirect
Direct: Participant demonstrates learning/knowledge. For example, ask a student to list the mental health resources available on campus. They must directly generate this knowledge and show you that yes, they can list the various services.
Indirect: Participant’s perception of learning. For example, ask a student if they agree or disagree that they can list the mental health resources available on campus. Even if they agree with this statement, we are not certain they know this information since with an indirect measure this really measures what they perceive they know.
When possible, try to use a direct measure so you can know with certainty that participants did acquire new knowledge or skills.
Quantitative Methods
• Surveys
• Pre/Post Test
Qualitative Methods
• Interviews
• Focus Groups