Developing Dialogues 2016-2017

Assessment Report

Goals

Increase student awareness, knowledge, and skills

Increase student confidence in having difficult dialogues about social justice with residents

Hypotheses:

1) RAs who experience Developing Dialogues will have a deeper awareness of social justice issues.
2) RAs will finish Developing Dialogues feeling more confident and better prepared to engage in difficult
dialogue about social justice.

Methodology

The assessment used a mixed-methods approach to analyze likert-scale based quantitative data and thematic
coding to analyze qualitative data. The quantitative data included responses to two questions that focused on
general awareness levels of social justice. Qualitative data came from one open-ended question that
participants were not required to respond to. That question was: Now that you have more knowledge and
awareness, what do you plan to do?

The quantitative data was gathered using a five-point Likert scale that included descriptions of the awareness
levels associated with each point on the scale. The likert scale categories were: 1) Not very much. Cannot
recite definitions of privilege or oppression. Believe the privilege and oppression do not exist.; 2) A little bit.
Have heard of privilege and oppression. Have little to no relevant personal experience; 3) Average awareness.
Understand these issues. Do not have the language to explain privilege and oppression to others; 4) Aware.
Can explain these privilege, oppression, and how systemic power dynamics impact peoples lives; and 5)
Educator. Know a lot about these issues and have facilitated dialogue about privilege and oppression.

Quantitative Results

Quantitative Data Totals Data Percentages

Q1 Q2 Totals Q1 Q2
1 11 1 12 1 16% 1%
2 0 0 0 2 0% 0%
3 30 10 40 3 45% 15%
4 24 42 66 4 36% 63%
5 2 14 16 5 3% 21%
Totals 67 67 134 Totals 100% 100%

Total Attendance 105

Quantitative Response Rate 64%
Qualitative Response Rate 51%
Qualitative Results
The third question provided qualitative responses and themes Average Awareness of
emerged from the data (n=54). RAs were asked to articulate their an RA
plans for continual learning and how they will advocate for social 5 Pre
justice within their communities. The three major themes that Post
Likert Scale

emerged from the responses are: keep actively learning (n=14), 4

4.01
committed to advocate for others (n=20), and plans to use their
social justice skillset (n=25). There were responses the spanned 3
3.09
across two or more of the themes, which is why the total number
2
of responses is less than total of responses across three themes.
Awareness Level
(Avg. Across Q1 - Q5)
Constructive feedback was collected previously in the Fall 2016
semester and will be utilized when constructing the experience for the 2017-2018 school year. Further data
may be collected at the end of the Spring 2017 semester as well. Overall RAs provided very affirming and
appreciative feedback. Here are highlights of those satisfactory responses: I want to continue learning as long
as there is still oppression. I will try my best to radiate the knowledge I have learned, in order to educate others
in hopes that they will do the same, I appreciate when others show passion for such topics and then want to
help others that are in need, especially when an issue doesn't directly affect that individual, Now that I have
more awareness I plan to educate my friends and family. I can now feel confident speaking on these issues
with others, something I was not able to do before these developing dialogues. They were very helpful, and [I
plan to] spread my knowledge to people who are ignorant to certain topics like oppression and privilege.
Although as a white person it is harder to reach other white people my goal is to do just that.

Discussion
The assessment shows that RAs finished the Developing Dialogue experience with increased awareness
levels, more confidence in their social justice competence and better prepared to advocate for equity within
their communities. The results affirm that Developing Dialogues are a rewarding experience for RAs that
expands their awareness of social justice. The key findings are discussed more fully in the following
paragraphs.

Increased Awareness Levels. RAs self-reported awareness levels indicated that their awareness levels
increases as a result of Developing Dialogues. Although question number one was not actually asked before
RAs experienced Developing Dialogues, the reflective wording of the questions at least allows for their
response to be compared to their respective response to question number two. When evaluating their previous
awareness of social justice (Q1), 11 responses indicated not very much as a response to their awareness
level across the various social justice issues. Even more responses indicated only having an average
awareness (n=30). There was only one participant who reported an awareness level of not very much when
evaluating their awareness level after finishing Developing Dialogues. The interesting facet of that response is
that their evaluation of their awareness levels before Developing Dialogues was aware, or level four. All other
self-reported awareness levels increased. This means that almost all participants left the experience reporting
their developed awareness level was at least average awareness (99%) and a substantial number further
increased their awareness to aware (65%). On average, an RA came into the academic year with an
awareness level of 3.09 and finished the experience with an increased awareness level of 4.01; this is a
meaningful improvement (+0.92).

Increased Self-Confidence. Additionally, the increase existing within self-reported awareness levels likely
indicates that RAs felt more confident and prepared to engage in difficult dialogues about social justice after
experiencing Developing Dialogues. This correlation is illustrated by the increasing awareness levels and the
implications of that data being self-reported. The assessment was not set up to gage participants actual
knowledge base or skillset in terms of their ability to advocate for social justice, meaning this was not a
performance-based assessment; rather, the design enabled the assessment to gage the participants level of
self-confidence and self-reported awareness levels. The assessment allows us to definitively say that RAs
increased their awareness and knowledge of social justice issues, but also felt more aware, better prepared,
and energized to advocate for equity among their communities. This outcome may be the most meaningful
achievement of training effort. Developing Dialogues empowered people.

Conclusion
Developing Dialogues exist to allow RAs the opportunity to expand their awareness of social justice, deepen
their knowledge and attain skills needed to effectively support their residents. The assessment data proves that
RAs came away with that exact experience. RAs gained a higher level of awareness after experiencing
Developing Dialogues of the 2016-2017 academic year. The data also indicated greater confidence in their
ability to knowledgeably engage in difficult dialogues about social justice. The assessment proves that goals of
Developing Dialogues were achieved and RAs grew from the experience.