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Research and Assessment
This outcome
is the one in which I believe have made the most progress since commencing my
Graduate program at Penn State. I had taken courses during my undergraduate
career as part of my academic requirements to graduate but invested very little
in understanding the concepts that now seem so essential in my daily work
within my assistantship with Fraternity and Sorority Life as well as my
internships with Upward Bound and Service Trips. I find myself assessing more
often than researching, however both cyclically impact each other regardless of
any attempts to differentiate where one begins and the other ends.
In an effort to define this outcome as simply as possible: assessment is generally conducted at the conclusion of a program, event, or even for an entire office whereas research is conducted prior to and potentially during. In a less abbreviated definition, assessment can be executed in a variety of ways but ultimately involves receiving feedback via some method to determine the not only the strengths of a program or area but also what could be done to improve its effectiveness. The information is gathered, analyzed, and recorded. Once this information is in hand, Student Affairs Professionals will then hopefully be intentional about accepting the recommendations that are most sensible regarding how to improve whatever it is they are assessing. Research on the other hand, involves collecting data and compiling information. The two pieces are not exclusive to those, but rather both can be weaved throughout an entirety of a program, event, training, functional area and so on. Both Research and Assessment are such an essential part of not only Student Affairs practice, but also academic curriculums. I absorbed a majority of my understanding about this learning outcome as a result of our course last spring.
I have never in any of my courses seen a project divided, explained, and executed in such a clear, precise, and understandable way. For our Research and Assessment course we were asked to pick a topic to gather information about which we would be writing a research proposal. I chose low-income first generation high school students and their college choice process. This topic stemmed from my personal interest and experience, integrated concepts from my Student Development course such as Schlossberg’s Transition Theory and Hossler and Gallagher’s Model of College Choice, and ultimately served as the catalyst for my connection to Upward Bound’s program and my internship with them during my second year.
In my assistantship with Fraternity and Sorority Life I develop an assessment after every program I execute, and use the information gained to enhance the program the following month, semester, year, etc. Even in creating assessments it is essential to know what the best method is by which to receive feedback based on your population of students, this is to ensure you are getting the most out of their responses. I used an assessment from last fall’s Leadership Retreat to develop this spring’s Leadership Retreat, and the assessment developed for this retreat will be used for next fall’s and so on. But as stated previously, the results are to be implemented with discretion. Identifying, evaluating, and utilizing existent protocols is the easiest way to not re-invent the wheel. We have a standard assessment tool that we use for our Leadership Conference and aside from updating and modifying, the structure remains the same. That is because it works for us. In my internship with Upward Bound however, that is not the case.
Upward Bound assesses everything which is really great. I think the heavy assessment is tied to the grant funding requirements as well as proactive thinking for being able to provide this information in the next grant. This in itself is another part of this learning outcome, being able to convey key findings to stakeholders – UB is very cognizant of what they will need as supplemental material as we begin our next grant writing phase. As a result of my Research and Assessment course however, I saw areas where the assessment being used was lacking. There were poor word choices that made the questions unclear and confusing which eventually lead to un-useable responses. UB must create and collect a lot of data mostly in the form of assessments in order to support the grant. It requires extensive information gathering and statistics finding, it is very quantitative based, multiple sources of data must be analyzed.
Assessments without change are not beneficial. It is important to apply the findings and adjust future actions based on thoughtful recommendations. A background in Research and assessment allows for this positive forward progression.
In an effort to define this outcome as simply as possible: assessment is generally conducted at the conclusion of a program, event, or even for an entire office whereas research is conducted prior to and potentially during. In a less abbreviated definition, assessment can be executed in a variety of ways but ultimately involves receiving feedback via some method to determine the not only the strengths of a program or area but also what could be done to improve its effectiveness. The information is gathered, analyzed, and recorded. Once this information is in hand, Student Affairs Professionals will then hopefully be intentional about accepting the recommendations that are most sensible regarding how to improve whatever it is they are assessing. Research on the other hand, involves collecting data and compiling information. The two pieces are not exclusive to those, but rather both can be weaved throughout an entirety of a program, event, training, functional area and so on. Both Research and Assessment are such an essential part of not only Student Affairs practice, but also academic curriculums. I absorbed a majority of my understanding about this learning outcome as a result of our course last spring.
I have never in any of my courses seen a project divided, explained, and executed in such a clear, precise, and understandable way. For our Research and Assessment course we were asked to pick a topic to gather information about which we would be writing a research proposal. I chose low-income first generation high school students and their college choice process. This topic stemmed from my personal interest and experience, integrated concepts from my Student Development course such as Schlossberg’s Transition Theory and Hossler and Gallagher’s Model of College Choice, and ultimately served as the catalyst for my connection to Upward Bound’s program and my internship with them during my second year.
In my assistantship with Fraternity and Sorority Life I develop an assessment after every program I execute, and use the information gained to enhance the program the following month, semester, year, etc. Even in creating assessments it is essential to know what the best method is by which to receive feedback based on your population of students, this is to ensure you are getting the most out of their responses. I used an assessment from last fall’s Leadership Retreat to develop this spring’s Leadership Retreat, and the assessment developed for this retreat will be used for next fall’s and so on. But as stated previously, the results are to be implemented with discretion. Identifying, evaluating, and utilizing existent protocols is the easiest way to not re-invent the wheel. We have a standard assessment tool that we use for our Leadership Conference and aside from updating and modifying, the structure remains the same. That is because it works for us. In my internship with Upward Bound however, that is not the case.
Upward Bound assesses everything which is really great. I think the heavy assessment is tied to the grant funding requirements as well as proactive thinking for being able to provide this information in the next grant. This in itself is another part of this learning outcome, being able to convey key findings to stakeholders – UB is very cognizant of what they will need as supplemental material as we begin our next grant writing phase. As a result of my Research and Assessment course however, I saw areas where the assessment being used was lacking. There were poor word choices that made the questions unclear and confusing which eventually lead to un-useable responses. UB must create and collect a lot of data mostly in the form of assessments in order to support the grant. It requires extensive information gathering and statistics finding, it is very quantitative based, multiple sources of data must be analyzed.
Assessments without change are not beneficial. It is important to apply the findings and adjust future actions based on thoughtful recommendations. A background in Research and assessment allows for this positive forward progression.