The Data at Your Fingertips

ADAM M. MCCREADY, PH.D.

Aubrey is the assistant director of fraternity and sorority life (FSL) at Seacoast State University. As the sole FSL professional in her office, she is responsible for supporting the entire fraternity and sorority community of 2,000 students. Though she has prepared an annual assessment report for the past two years that included the FSL community and chapter grade point averages, attendance figures from FSL events and programs, students’ satisfaction with these initiatives, and service hours reported by each of the 20 chapters on campus, her supervisor has informed her these findings will no longer be enough for future assessment reports. The new vice president for student affairs expects each office to present evidence that allows stakeholders to better understand student learning and development. While Aubrey supports this new assessment push, she is concerned about her capacity to collect more data. She is already stretched thinly by her other responsibilities that include meeting with all chapter presidents and attending weekly fraternity and sorority council meetings. In addition, she must plan and coordinate all FSL community programming, including an upcoming new member retreat. She does not have time to develop or distribute questionnaires. Students have also expressed to her their frustrations with receiving so many survey invitations over the course of a year. Aubrey is at a loss for how she can meet the expectations of the new vice president.

Collecting new assessment data can be a daunting task, especially with competing interests for staff time and energy. However, professionals like Aubrey often overlook the data at their fingertips, including information they already possess or is available elsewhere at their institutions. 1 After deciding what fraternity and sorority professionals want — or need — to know to assess student learning, it is important to identify readily available data before taking on new initiatives to collect this information.

Before pursuing leads for new data sources, fraternity and sorority professionals should identify data already in their possession or that they can easily collect with some slight modifications to current professional practices. Professionals most likely have access to more data than they realize, and this may be particularly true for qualitative data that can be easily overlooked when others prioritize quantitative findings. 2 However, qualitative assessment designs often align with the philosophical perspectives of student affairs (e.g., the value of the individual experience).

Returning to our initial case, Aubrey may be able to use ethnographic research practices to record her observations from the weekly fraternity and sorority council meetings. By analyzing this data over the course of a semester or year, she may be able to identify themes related to student learning and development relevant to the mission, vision, or values of her office, division, or institution. Fraternity and sorority life professionals are bombarded with qualitative data on a daily basis (see Table 1 for examples). By being organized and intentional, fraternity and sorority professionals can use this information to engage in iterative assessment. Table 1

Possible Sources of Qualitative Data for FSL Professionals:

Chapter officer meetings; One-minute written reflects at the end of a program; Chapter accreditation reports; Social media posts by fraternity and sorority members; Reflective journal entries; Interviews with general members, alumni, or other stakeholders; Council minutes; Digital media, including pictures, audio, and video

1 Culp, M. M. (2012). Starting the culture of evidence journey. In M. M. Culp & G. J. Dundy (Eds.), Building a culture of evidence in student affairs: A guide for leaders and practitioners (pp. 1-20). Washington, DC: National Association of Student Personnel Administration (NASPA). 2 Schuh, J. H, Biddix, J. P., Dean, L. A., & Kinzie, J. (2016). Assessment in student affairs (2nd edition). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Beyond the data in your immediate possession, fraternity and sorority professionals may also be able to access data collected or managed by other stakeholders that can be used for their assessment efforts (see Table 2). Higher education institutions and other organizations collect and maintain large amounts of data on college students. For example, say fostering a sense of community citizenship was a desired outcome of the Seacoast State new member retreat. Aubrey could work with student conduct professionals on her campus to compare the frequency of conduct violations for new members who participate in the fraternity and sorority new member retreat with those who did not to see if there is a statistically significant difference. While Aubrey could also use other findings to assess this outcome, the conduct data could provide useful evidence for her report.

Other Potential Data Sources for FSL Professionals

Admissions data; Financial aid data; Student conduct data; Retention data; Graduation data Alumni data; Housing data; Service-learning data; Leadership program participation data; Student organization membership data; Data from studies and reports; Data generated from benchmarking or program reviews; Data from external surveys; Data from fraternity and sorority national organizations; Data generated by town, city, or other community organizations

There are several challenges that fraternity and sorority professionals should consider if they decide to identify data maintained by other sources within an institution or organization. First, the data may be highly decentralized, and identifying what exists and who maintains these data can be difficult. 3 Additionally, even if the desired data can be located, gaining access to this information may be challenging because of bureaucratic roadblocks and concerns about privacy and confidentiality. To navigate these challenges, both Culp and Schuh recommended professionals seek the support of colleagues in student affairs assessment positions, institutional research, institutional effectiveness, and other data managers. Forming partners with these professionals and other stakeholders may help to improve overall assessment efforts.

In addition to data collected by the institution or organization, many colleges, universities, and organizations turn to external agencies or researchers to collect data on their students. 4 These data are often collected through survey research such as the fourth-year National Study of Student Engagement (NSSE) survey. The items included in these questionnaires may align with the purpose of your assessment. Since institutions or organizations often contract and pay for these external surveys or projects, institutional data from the surveys may be accessible to other staff. Returning to our example, Aubrey could work with other professionals on her campus who maintain the NSSE dataset to examine the responses of fraternity and sorority members to particular survey items. However, like other institutional or organizational data, there may be challenges to accessing these findings.

There are frequently overlooked additional data collection opportunities such as agreements with external agencies that conduct survey research. Professionals like Aubrey could establish formal agreements with headquarters professionals to exchange mutually beneficial data to support ongoing assessment efforts. There are also countless researchers, including highly-motivated graduate students, who would gladly conduct research on fraternity and sorority members in exchange for data or a report of their findings. There are plenty of avenues to identify new data sources with a bit of resourcefulness and ingenuity.

Data are everywhere. Before a new survey is designed or time is devoted to a new assessment initiative, professionals may first want to consider other data sources within their grasp. These data may provide them with findings that meet their assessment goals or objectives.

Adam M. McCready, Ph.D. Dr. Adam M. McCready is a visiting assistant professor for the Higher Education & Student Affairs program at the University of Connecticut and serves as the senior research associate for Dyad Strategies, LLC. While completing his Ph.D. in higher education from Boston College, he served as a graduate assistant for the vice president of student affairs at Bentley University, supporting the assessment initiatives for the Division of Student Affairs. Adam worked as a campus-based fraternity and sorority life professional at the University of New Hampshire and MIT prior to his doctoral work.