From Education Evaluation Research to Evidence-Based Impact: Continuous Program Improvement in the Senior Odyssey Summer Program

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 7:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Designing and Evolving Programs for Continuous Educational Improvement

Abstract

Outreach programs in higher education have a history of supporting historically marginalized populations persist in college. This 3-year mixed-method meta-evaluation study focuses on continuous improvement of one summer program at a research university that supports high school seniors prior to starting college. The study collected participant formative feedback and highlighted the importance of measuring the reliability of assessment tools. Findings revealed that: a) a culturally relevant and sustaining design to the program increased students’ level of confidence in transitioning to college and knowledge about college resources; b) and one of the survey sections required changes for greater assessment reliability. Study findings allowed for changes to the assessment tool to understand how to transform the summer program to increase outcome impact.

Authors

• Gema Cardona, Berkeley University of California

• Saadeddin Bozkurt, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Shelly Horn, University of California - Santa Cruz