For an enhanced digital experience, read this story in the ezine.
In the first scene of the pilot episode of Parks and Recreation, Leslie Knope, professionally dressed, approaches a girl playing in a sandbox to ask her how much she is enjoying her time in the park. She continues to ask a multiple-choice question. The child responds with a confused expression and promptly returns to her playtime. Receiving no answer from the youth, Knope selects the answer for the girl and then is distracted by an incident in the park, ending the data collection effort.
Do you ever feel a little like Knope when collecting data from youth?
Evaluating youth programming and services is essential for ensuring maximum impact. Although surveys and focus groups are tried-and-true data collection methods with adults, it is often more difficult to capture valid and robust data from youth using these methods.
Tailoring data collection methods to cater to the abilities and interests of youth can improve the validity of data that truly incorporates youth voice. Understanding the opinions of our youngest beneficiaries can result in continuous improvement of programs and greater resulting impact.
This column offers a few engaging ideas for collecting data from youth.
Token Canisters
For this method, youth place candy or some sort of desired token into one (or more) canisters that represent different options. Another version is performing this activity in reverse by filling each container with 100 desirable tokens and allowing each youth to take one to keep from the canister that represents their opinion. You can calculate the results by using the number of tokens added or remaining from each container.
Dot/Feedback Stickers
Another simple way to collect information from youth is to ask them to use dot stickers to express their responses from several options posted on a wall. A variation offers a range of posted responses to a question for which participants use red, yellow or green stickers on each option to indicate positive, neutral and negative responses.
Journaling
For older youth, participatory photography tools (e.g., Photovoice) help people to share their experiences through images/videos and then reflect upon the reasons behind their images. Using these tools could provide valuable information to summarize participants’ perceptions.
A lower-tech and lower-cost version of this method is technology-
assisted journaling. Ask participants to keep a blog or video journal for recording their reflections of the program each day or week, posting it to a social media venue or to a private forum. You may let the participants decide what to talk about or provide questions to answer.
Peer Interviewing
Set up a project where kids interview each other and record the conversation. This activity could be combined with a journalism project, a multimedia project or a research project, if desired. You can provide them with questions you want answered or even get them involved in creating the questions to strengthen engagement and learning. Use the collected information to summarize successes, lessons learned and impact.
Art Projects
Art projects are a fun way for youth to express themselves. Ask the participants to collaborate on designing and creating a mural or large drawing/painting that shares what they loved most about the summer program. Record their conversations while they design the mural as an added source of information.
Youth also could prepare individual art projects to describe their experience in the program. This request could be as simple as decorating rocks or drawing a picture or something more elaborate like a small sculpture. Youth then present to the class what aspect of the program they chose to highlight and why. Make notes or record what they say!
General Tips
All these methods can stand alone or be modified and/or used in combination with each other to obtain the data you need from engaged youth. The key is to be innovative and youth focused while considering the data that you need for your evaluation.
Best wishes as you build your program evaluation skills!
Dianne Palladino, Ph.D., is the Interim Director of Research and Evaluation at NRPA.