Literacy Basics - Community Literacy of Ontario

Collecting Data

There are a number of sources of data and a number of ways that you can collect the information you will need to measure each indicator. Because you work with learners every day, you probably already have a good sense of how things are going, but you can’t just rely on your intuition or your perceptions. You need hard data to back that up. Anecdotal evidence is very helpful to provide real-life stories about outcome indicators, but great stories about learner successes are not enough. You still need to collect hard data.

When collecting outcomes-based information, we are looking to determine the impact the program has made, and continues to make, in the lives of students. One of the first places to start would be with the data from the three and six month follow-up reports. After all, Literacy and Basics Skills agencies in Ontario have to collect this information anyway, so you might as well use it for more than one purpose!

Exit and follow-up provides an excellent opportunity to speak directly to learners and find out what impact your program might have had on their lives! If you haven’t already taken a look at the Literacy Basics module on exit and follow-up, you can find it at www.nald.ca/literacybasics/exit/exit/01.htm!

As mentioned above, exit statistics are a great place to find outcome indicators. You can get a lot of information from the mandatory exit survey, but you can also use the exit survey to ask other questions … you are not restricted to just asking six questions! For example, you could ask learners to identify one thing they can do at exit that they were not able to do when they started. Gathering this information from a number of learners could provide a very valuable marketing tool!

There are so many sources of information that you can use to collect program evaluation data! One of the first places to start is with the staff … what impacts do they notice? Be sure to also check in with your volunteers about this. And of course, don’t forget to talk to the students themselves – they are going to be the best source of information about just how their enhanced literacy skills have impacted their lives.

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