My last blog was about identifying your audience(s) to help prepare you to share assessment results. This time, I would like to address what you want them to know or do. Obviously, that is very dependent on the particular audience you are addressing. Tailoring your message is incredibly important.
Knowledge
Based on your assessment results, you might identify people that have an interest in what you are doing and assessing, but you don’t necessarily need for them to do something (at this point). At the very least, you can probably identify several people you think should know something about your program right now.
You want your audiences to speak knowledgeably, accurately, and positively about what you do. Again, they may want different pieces of information. You may want the department director to know that you came in under budget and that participants/clients/users were satisfied with their experience. You may want to Vice President to know that students learned something specific in your program and positively contributed to student success. The Vice President, in turn, may share that with a new faculty member who wants to know about programs in student affairs. You may want users (and non-users) to know that you listened to their suggestions and changed something about what you do.
Action
On the other hand, you may want some people to take specific action based on your communication of assessment results. Without knowledge of your program, assessment data, and plans to move forward, it may be difficult for people to act.
An obvious action would be to get more financial support for what you want to do. You may be requesting money from donors; they need to know the positive impact you have had on students. Your director may be requesting funding from the Student Affairs Fee Advisory Board (SAFAB). The board needs to know the value and effect on the student body. Because of SAFAB process, you may want students to make positive comments on the SAFAB website when it is open for feedback on requests. You may need to increase participation fees; you need to let people know what their money will go toward to make it easier to support the change. The more information people have about what you do will encourage them to care about your program.
You may also be interested in having more people participate in your programs and services. How will you get them to take that action? One way is to tell them how attentive you have been to assessment and what changes you have made based on their feedback. This information could be on your website or in other recruitment material that you send out. Another way is to work through past users/participants to spread the word. You could communicate with them through email or social media, encouraging them to tell their friends.
Maybe you want to forge new partnerships to expand or enhance your current program or service. If someone asked you to do more/different work and use already scare resources, wouldn’t you want to know as much as you could about the program? Being able to approach people with accurate, relevant, usable data will build other people’s confidence in your program.
Those are only a few reasons to share assessment results. Be sure to keep those reasons, and others, in mind as you undertake an assessment project. Student Life Studies is always here to help you in that process. Please let us know how we can help.