Every Voice Counts: What Monitoring Student Surveys Taught Me About Good Data
Written by Bam Purcell
This summer, my Professional Work Experience with Summer Search put me right in the middle of a question every public organization faces: How do you actually know your programming is working?
Summer Search serves high school students from under-resourced communities through long-term mentoring and funded summer trips. Staying true to that mission takes more than good intentions. It takes evidence. To understand whether mentoring relationships and summer trips are actually helping students grow, Summer Search surveys the students at key touch points in the program, such as when they enter the program, again at the end of high school, and after each funded summer trip. These surveys track student development over time and give the organization an evidence-based picture of whether its core programming is meeting its objectives, and where it might need to adjust.
But a survey is only as good as the data behind it. If only certain regions or certain subgroups of students respond, the organization ends up making national decisions based on an incomplete and unrepresentative picture. Good decisions require good data, and part of my job this summer has been to ensure we get good, representative data.
I monitor survey completion across five regional sites, tracking progress toward response targets and watching for gaps among different student subgroups. When a region or group is falling behind, I collaborate with regional staff with updates to keep completion momentum going. I also learned to send text blasts directly to students through Salesforce, which turned out to be one of the better ways to reach students who weren’t responding to email.
Being part of this work has connected to what I learned in Dr. Chris Cody’s research and evaluation courses in the MPA program. Dr. Cody often emphasized the importance of good research design to get good data, and how decisions about survey administration affect whether the results can be trusted. This summer has let me experience that theory in practice.
Through my collaboration with Summer Search staff, we hit our response targets and ended up with data that was representative of the students we serve. Getting that data felt worthwhile because it will be used in decisions about where to invest in program improvements, in advancement work when the organization applies for new funding, and in decision-making about the organization as a whole.
This summer, I’ve learned that getting good data does not happen quickly or easily. I’ve come to see survey monitoring as behind-the-scenes work that ends up mattering a lot. It’s been a joy to know that behind every completed survey is a student whose voice now counts in decisions that shape Summer Search’s future.
