Making Data Work For You

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Making Data Work For You!

• Understanding how data can be your friend

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Agenda Today

• Understand why we should collect data
• See some examples of what I have collected this
  school year
• Understand how you can take some steps towards
  collecting data at your schools, districts, etc.

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My Background

• Counselor for three years
• Jay Carey (University of Massachusetts),
  presentation at WSCA opened my eyes to the
  possibilities of data
• Attended the University of Massachusetts Summer
  Leadership Institute for School Counseling
• Decided I had enough knowledge that I could move
  forward this year, with data being my primary
  focus

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Why Collect Data?

• To help us develop effective ways to make
  positive impacts on our students
• So that we know what is working and what needs to
  be changed
• Even data that tells us bad information is
  effective data

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ASCA National Model Procedures

• Disaggregating Data- Breaking down data into
  different categories
• Changes over time- ability to measure changes
  over quarters, semesters or years
• Results reporting- understanding means (average),
  percentages, standard deviations
• Advanced Features- correlations, T-tests, etc.

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Results Reporting

• This year we wanted to see the effectiveness of
  our freshman guidance lessons
• Objective
• To understand how much students were absorbing
  through our current means of delivery
• -gt we visit freshman four times throughout the
  school year in October, December, February and
  March
• Implement changes if necessary to our lessons to
  improve overall effectiveness

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Results Reporting (Cont.)

• Used a pre test to determine baseline of
  knowledge before we taught anything in freshman
  guidance lessons
• After 3rd freshman lesson we did a post test to
  determine the results
• And the results.

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Pre Test vs. Post Test Comparison
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Disaggregated by GPA

• How well did students do based on GPA?
• About the same for all categories
• This is a very good sign
• indicating that students understood what we
  taught them regardless of GPA

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Disaggregated by Parents Education Level
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Changes Over Time Data

• This can be used to measure a variety of
  important factors
• Change in grade
• Change in attendance
• Change in behavior

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Changes Over Time (cont.)

• Through data collection we can evaluate
• Real Data vs. Perceived Data
• Perceived Data- Our belief that an intervention
  has worked or not worked with out supporting
  facts
• An example

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Interventions at Jackson High School

• Freshman Conferences- After 1st quarter I met
  with all freshman who failed 2 or more classes
• Junior Credit Check- In October I met with all
  Juniors who were either on track, but failed a
  class or barely off track
• I perceived that one intervention was not
  effective at all while the other was highly
  successful
• Turns out both were successful, the one that I
  was concerned about was actually more successful

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Freshman Conferences Intervention

• On average the intervention group increased their
  GPA .21 GPA points
• Compare this with the freshman group as a whole
  who actually saw a negative GPA during the same
  time of .03 GPA points
• Additionally the intervention group was failing
  49 classes before the intervention and were
  failing 26 at semester end, a reduction of 46
• ? For all freshman this figure was 25 reduction

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Junior Credit Checks Intervention

• As you can see there was only a .04 GPA increase
• Made me wonder why, as I thought it was a very
  good intervention
• Upon further research I discovered junior grades
  decreased in the same period .1 GPA points, so a
  little increase was still successful
  comparatively

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Junior Credit Checks Intervention

• Additionally, this group dropped the number of
  failing classes from 38 to 26
• A reduction of 28
• Juniors on average actually increase failures
  about 5 over the same time period

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Best ways to collect data

• We have looked at 3 ways that I have collected
  data at my high school, but the results only tell
  part of the story
• Lets look at how I collected all this data, and
  trust me, it wasnt hard nor did it take a long
  time
• The first thing I did was become proficient with
  EZ Analyze so I understood the scope of what it
  could do

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What is EZ Analyze?

• Helps counselors use data efficiently and
  effectively
• Used as tool to help counselors meets goals and
  procedures of the ASCA National Model

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Getting started

• Go to www.ezanalyze.com on your computer and
  download the following
• EZ Analyze Sample Data
• EZ Analyze Program File
• EZ Analyze Tutorial
• Once you have completed this step you are off and
  running

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Possibilities

• Once I understood the scope of EZ analyze I then
  knew what I could and could not do given time
  constraints, limits of the program, etc.
• I then focused on the data collection previously
  discussed, lets look at each one and understand
  how to replicate in your school

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Step by step process to collect data, Results
Reporting

• Create a survey, pre/post-test, evaluation or
  other measure that fits your objectives
• Figure out what you would like to measure
• Collect the results and put them into excel
  spreadsheet, use EZ Analyze to interpret results,
  disaggregate data, etc.
• OR
• Use the summary function on scantron machines
  (does the same thing as above just cannot do some
  of the extra things)

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Step by step process to collect data, changes
over time

• Collect a school wide report to determine who
  will be in your intervention group
• Develop an intervention to change behavior,
  grades, attendance
• Collect baseline data as a starting point (put in
  excel spreadsheet
• Execute intervention
• At the end of intervention or evaluation period
  collect end point data
• Use EZ Analyze to interpret the results, create
  graphs, etc.

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Summary

• Use the simple statistics to evaluate changes
  over time
• Use this to track any inventions you are working
  on
• Results reporting can be used to evaluate the
  effectiveness of guidance curriculum
• Use results reporting to document simple
  percentages or averages (For example, how many
  students knew that they needed 3.0 credits of
  math before they graduated)
• Disaggregating data can be used to figure how
  certain sub groups do on the data you are
  collecting
• If you use EZ Analyze this can be done very
  easily

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Homework ?

• Go to www.ezanalyze.com and download the
  tutorials, program and sample data sheets
• Go through Tutorials
• Set a goal of collecting one piece of data for
  this year
• If you need help or want to bounce ideas off of
  someone, please e-mail or give me a call
• Paul Turner, 425-385-7027 or pturner_at_everettsd.or
  g