Assessment & Evaluation

Assessment Methods

The ECS program is continually seeking input in order to improve  our activities and policies. Surveys and questionnaires are used to collect feedback and the data is analyzed to help make informed decisions. Other methods include informal interviews, online forms, and maintaining open communication with key personnel that can create an impact on the organization.

For us, student learning is often measured in the evaluation of pre vs. post test results. It is standard practice for us to distribute questionnaires at the end of each workshop, seminar, and presentation. For long-term evaluation needs, we analyze focus group, longitudinal data, projects, journals, and graduate school acceptance results.

Evaluation Methods

Each grant has an external evaluator to conduct short-term and long-term quantitative evaluation.

Data Analysis & Management

Data collection is required in today's outcome oriented environment. Stakeholders are demanding concrete evidence of program effectiveness. Quantitative and qualitative data is needed for project monitoring and evaluation. As of July 2012, this responsibility is handled by Ms. Aimee Sanchez . Data requests should be sent via email to ecs@uvi.edu. Please submit items well in advance and allow proper time for processing.

ECS customized data collection instruments developed by Systemic Research, Inc, as part of a grant from the National Science Foundation. We will work with our division, office of Institutional Research & Planning, Institutional Advancement, and office of Research & Public Service to determine the scope and depth of data needed, analyze the data, and design reports to communicate our successes, milestones, and challenges. The collected data is presented in reports, used for forecasting, and presented to a variety of stakeholders.

In September of 2007, Ms. Moneca Pinkett gave a presentation entitled "Behind SPMS: Import and Export Data to Improve Communication and Assessment Data Storage" to data managers, evaluators, and project directors/principal investigators supported by NSF's HBCU-UP (Historically Black Colleges & Universities - Undergraduate Programs) grants.

Ms. Pinkett explained how UVI utilized SPMS (Student Progress Monitoring System) 4.2 as a centralized repository for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students' and graduates' demographics, activities, scholarships, and degrees conferred data. Forty-five years of STEM data from many sources were merged into the back-end of SPMS and therefore became accessible to project managers and assistants through the front-end interface. Queries from the backend of SPMS determined which students were eligible for scholarship and research programs. The results of the queries were exported from SPMS and imported into mass mailings and email campaigns to invite students to apply form certain programs. New SPMS fields, tables, and reports were created to support data from the students' research and scholarship online application forms. Ms. Pinkett explained how completing evaluation reports became effortless as a direct result of SPMS. By importing data from three resources, UVI was able to avoid tedious data entry of over 800 STEM students, eventually enhancing the architecture of SPMS to create national and international reports to support their diverse student and program base.