EDAD 510 Needs Assessment Project

Year 1 / Spring 2021 / Friday, May 7, 2021

DESCRIPTION

For EDAD 510: Introduction to Educational Research, all students are required to conduct an Assessment Project. My group members (Hedrick Flores, Kaytlyn Matsuda, Kevin Kou Hang, and Connie Oh) decided to conduct a Needs Assessment on the needs of Students who are Parents/Guardians/Caretakers in the Department of Educational Leadership. We presented the assessment data to Dr. Eugene Fujimoto on May 7, 2021.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Student will be able to collaborate with group members to conduct a Needs Assessment for students who are Parents/Guardians/Caretakers in the Department of Educational Leadership.

2. Student will be able to disaggregate data for at least one demographic group with an equity lens.

3. Student will be able to present key findings and suggestions for future assessment and/or improvement to a Practitioner in a position to make change.

LEARNING DOMAINS

• Leadership

• Social Justice & Advocacy

• Assessment & Evaluation

REFLECTION

For EDAD 510: Introduction to Educational Research, all students are required to conduct an Assessment Project to put into practice all we have learned about research, assessment, and equity. My group members (Hedrick Flores, Kaytlyn Matsuda, Kevin Kou Hang, and Connie Oh) initially wanted to do an outcomes assessment on the Peer Mentor Program at Orange Coast College (OCC), which I currently oversee. However, due to the level of clearance needed to conduct research at OCC, we had to switch gears. After some discussion, we decided to conduct a Needs Assessment on Students who are Parents/Guardians/Caretakers (or PGC Students, as I will shorten them from this point on) in the Department of Educational Leadership. This idea came about as we were talking to a student who was a parent about their experience in MSHE and we realized that this was a group of students that were often glossed over in our class discussions.

Coordinating with three other group members was not always easy, as many of us were balancing several major class projects and also out-of-class responsibilities (HELO, work, family, etc). However, we practiced clear communication and expectations by setting a standing meeting time and maintaining a record of our action items each week. We also checked in with Dr. Lundberg three times throughout the semester on our progress to make sure that we were on track with the project timeline and expectations. All of these teamwork and leadership practices helped us create a project that we were proud of without like one person was doing all the work or feeling rushed at the end.

As we jumped into the process of creating, conducting, and analyzing the results of a full survey, we started to review what we had learned throughout the course. Our readings by McNair et al. (2020) emphasized the importance of disaggregating data. As they put it, "disaggregating data makes inequities visible... Disaggregating institutional data is a critical first step to addressing inequities, because doing so allows practitioners to 'see' differences in student outcomes" (55). None of our group members PGC Students, so we had our preconceived notions on what would be the greatest challenge for a student who were taking care of a child. We thought it was important that we actively fight these preconceived notions in our assessment disaggregating by giving ample space for students to express their needs in their own words and also disaggregating the data in various ways to see the nuances in PCG Student needs. When we gave students the space to speak their truth and also disaggregated the data, we found interesting results.

Initially, we came in with the preconceived notion that childcare was going to be one of the greatest challenges that PGC students faced. Surprisingly, we found that not many PGC students cited childcare as a major challenge. Instead, time management was cited as the greatest challenge for PGC students. Many students vocalized that they feel like they are missing out on connections with students and personal/professional development due to time constraints. When we disaggregated the data by race, we saw that time management remained the greatest challenge for PGC students of all races with the exception of biracial, multiracial, mixed-race students. It was fascinating to see how our notions of what we think the challenges of PGC students were "debunked." It also got me to think about how I as an MSHE student was excluding PGC students. I can personally attest that my study group does not have any PGC students - perhaps it was because I unconsciously found scheduling around the PGC students' responsibilities really difficult. This project forced me to re-evaluate my own practices and behavior as a fellow cohort mate and how I may be causing PGC students to feel excluded.

Lastly, we were tasked with sharing our data with a practitioner who could create change. We presented our key findings and suggestions for future assessment/improvement to Dr. Eugene Fujimoto on May 7, 2021. Dr. Fujimoto found our presentation extremely helpful, but also have us great critical feedback for us to consider in our final project paper and future assessment. For example, we did not highlight the gender breakdown of our submissions, but Dr. Fujimoto recommended that we highlight the gender breakdown in future presentations. Based on this suggestion, we highlight gender breakdown in our final paper to Dr. Lundberg. This project was a great opportunity to conduct a survey assessment on a topic that I was not previously familiar with from start to finish. I appreciate all of the faculty members who helped us disseminate and create the survey. I also appreciate Hedrick, Kaytlyn, and Kevin for being great team members who always made the process smooth with clear communication and expectations!

REFERENCES

McNair, T.B., Bensimon, E.M., & Malcom-Piqueux, L. (2020). From equity talk to equity walk: Expanding practitioner knowledge for racial justice in higher education. Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-1-119-23791-4.