Got data? Transparency = trust.
By Shannon Stagman, Senior Program Director of Evaluation Services at ExpandED Schools.
Using evaluation data for continuous improvement is a primary goal for any high-quality program, but figuring out the most effective way to do so is a tricky proposition. Which data is most important to review? Who should be invited to discuss and strategize? And most importantly, how can programs create an environment in which stakeholders feel safe to have frank discussions about data findings?
At the Partnership for After School Education’s annual conference at Pace University, I attended a session titled Driving Direction Through Data. Jennifer Weidenbaum and Ethan Greenberg of Harlem RBI led a session about best practices in facilitating effective data review meetings, sharing their own experiences and recommendations. They provided the audience with several useful tools, such as a breakdown of the four types of program data (descriptive, process, outcome and satisfaction), a guide for setting a productive data meeting agenda, and a worksheet to help meeting participants track notes, follow-up questions and action steps for improvement.
On top of that, Weidenbaum and Greenberg shared Harlem RBI’s organizational norms for data review, which have been vital to their efforts to build a culture of trust and openness around data. They strike me as particularly useful for any program working on building this capacity. The guidelines are as follows:
- To use data to help understand
- To learn and reflect
- To plan action based on learning
- To use data to support our conversations and conclusions
- NOT to make judgments about our youth and families
- NOT to assign blame for youth performance
In my role as an evaluator of over thirty 21st Century Community Learning Center programs, I’m familiar with the uncertainty and anxiety many feel about examining data closely and determining its implications for program design and performance. An environment that prioritizes openness and learning without blame has a much better chance of making everyone at the table comfortable with the process, and of fostering trust and investment from collaborative partners. We encourage every program to consider their current data review protocols, and whether all stakeholders seem comfortable with data and invested in using it for continuous improvement. If not, establishing norms like these would be a great first step toward strengthening those efforts.
At ExpandED Schools, we have implemented our own strategy for continuous improvement via data-driven decision making. Our monthly meetings that bring together the Research and Operations Departments, known as ExpandED-stat, focus on analyzing data and joint planning, which has resulted in particularly effective continuous improvement efforts. Stay tuned for more on this in a special report coming this fall!
