Assessment Evaluation and Research

Infusing Daring Greatly into our Practice of Caring Greatly

Dan

There’s a lot of talk about transforming student affairs practice – we need to move the needle from routine to impactful. At the recent ACPA conference we were challenged to dare greatly  – a concept I believe in and feel compelled to act on. While our field has been taught to CARE greatly – convey a sense of compassion and empathy for the students with whom we work – I’m not sure the general field of student affairs is ready to DARE greatly. Collectively, I believe:

We’re not doing enough to demonstrate our contributions.

We’re not doing enough to end negative behaviors.

We’re not doing enough to create a work/life balance that makes sense.

I wonder what needs to happen to move the needle. What would make student affairs practitioners capture the moment and dare greatly?

Don’t get me wrong. Lots of people are doing amazing things: Changing lives and influencing students. People are trying to make a difference. This isn’t a condemnation, but rather an examination of what could change if we aim to dare greatly versus only care greatly.

Daring greatly might mean taking some of the following risks to become better professionals in this important field:

Using assessment to influence our work and infusing tactics to collect evidence of our contributions. We’d spend less time on hoping we’re making an impact and more time on finding ways to determine so as a natural part of our work. Our advising and helping tactics would infuse assessment into them, asking common questions, documenting our answers, using themes to determine strategies for improvement. We would take the leap to transform our work, all the while still conveying care and commitment.

Using different approaches to issues of alcohol, drugs, hazing, etc. Students know it’s against the law – who cares. How about we get more creative and talk about the way these things undermine our relationships. Students seem to like each other by and large – there is some level of care there – maybe appealing to a sense of compassion for others might move the needle to end extreme and negative behaviors. We’d teach students how to take the risk. We’d support them through their enactment of the interventions we developed together.

Being more intentional with how we approach our work. We don’t need to be everything to every student. We need to convey care and concern. We need to handle their needs, but we do not need to lose ourselves as we seek to help them find the answers. Most life/work balance issues I’ve seen come as a result of caring greatly – certainly not a bad quality in a human being – but when we dare greatly, the way we demonstrate care may change.

So many good people work in student affairs. There is such a commitment to helping students. However, for us to dare greatly, we must be clear that our frameworks for practice must change. We must make progress on the things that we continue to push to the margins and we have to figure out ways to move the needle from routine to extraordinary. As we focus on change of our environment, we too will change. We’ll become more competent at demonstrating care while also daring students and ourselves to be all that we can be.

When Bad Assessment Happens to Good Student Affairs Assessment Professionals

Dan

Recently, I’ve conducted some bad assessment.

Two surveys on different occasions in which there were issues that any basic assessment professional should catch.

I’ve let a survey go out that has double barreled questions!

That same survey had political implications, asking controversial questions within a tradition laden population. It wasn’t for work or for formal research, I reasoned. So, I didn’t take the time to do the survey right and get people bought into asking the questions.

Another survey was pretty well done and had many eyes on it, but I realized the challenges of administering a home-grown survey using both paper and electronic modes. There were issues printing at natural question or page breaks. I printed eight versions before I got it perfect. Then I used print job seven for making copies and provided participants with an instrument in which three questions were hard to read because the words were cut in half – if only I had that extra .25 of an inch on the sheet.

Reality is that even I – someone who does assessment, and likes to think he does it well – can have those bad days. Even the best at developing instrumentation and protocol should involve others in the review and development. It is vital to examine political implications of assessment before “just putting an idea out there to see what people think”. No! Stop! Don’t do it. Don’t just put the survey out there just to see what they say. There are implications. Think about whether the implications are worth handling after the survey is sent out (even to a convenience sample of friends on Facebook).

It reminded me that we all have to be working toward maintaining and increasing our competence and confidence daily. We can backtrack. We can let things slide. Designing a poor survey likely won’t end up being the biggest tragedy around but there’s implications that must be addressed. I should have known better. People expect more from me.

What are the skills you need to improve/maintain that will make a difference in how others perceive you?

What are the mistakes you’ve made when aiming to do something you’re good at but ultimately you failed miserably?

Assessment, Evaluation and Research: Incorporating Practices Into Our Work

Dan

As with past blogs, I am incorporating the ACPA/NASPA Core Competencies. This week, I address Assessment, Evaluation and Research. Each is distinct from the other. For the purpose of this short blog, I will focus on assessment.

Ultimately we have to find ways to have an assessment framework to do our jobs rather than conduct assessment on top of our jobs. What does it mean to be an assessment oriented student affairs educator? Let’s look at some of the characteristics of professionals at different stages of competence and answer the question.

At the beginner level, one must be able to “facilitate appropriate data collection for system/department-wide assessment and evaluation efforts using up-to-date technology and methods”. An assessment oriented educator views any interaction as an opportunity to collect data. Meeting with student organization presidents over time, why not ask each of them the same question, such as “What are you dealing with in your organization?”. Good notes and analysis of these notes can reveal themes. Themes inform decisions. Using data to inform decision making is one part of good assessment.

Intermediates should be able to “prioritize program and learning outcomes with organization goals and values”. An assessment oriented educator knows the goals she/he wants to accomplish and aligns goals with that of the division and institution. Conversations with students help us collect information to know to what extent those outcomes are accomplished.  At the simplest level, taking the time to reflect on these conversations and document our observations makes existing practices assessment practices. Such practices reveal answers to our questions about what students are learning.

Those in the advanced level focus on such things as using assessment data to make strategic decisions. If you’re having the conversations and you are documenting your observations, at some point you can see if the human and fiscal resources you’re applying are paying off. Making decisions based on this data will help you to be more strategic in the services, programs and resources you provide. Assessment is a precursor to good planning.

It’s likely you’re already doing the following in your work: Having conversations, which leads to making decisions. Really, the missing piece is assessment of those conversations and the use of the assessment results to inform decisions.

How do you incorporate assessment already? What do you need to do to become more competent and confident in assessment, evaluation and research?