1. Telling Your Story: Sharing Assessment Results
DSA Assessment Team
February 12, 2018

2. Identify Your Stakeholders
Who?
Internal: Students, supervisors, administrators, staff, faculty
External: parents, accreditors, community, media, alumni, legislators
DSA—Increasingly data used in development and fundraising!
Etc…..

3. Connecting with Stakeholders
Are they excited and wide-eyed about what you have to tell them, or are they bored?
You need to know your stakeholders and their needs?
What are some differences in your stakeholders?
What they want to know
How they would use the information
Knowledge around statistics
Understanding of assessment methods
Student affairs functions
Priorities that need various levels of detail: decision making, budgeting, program improvement, accreditation, retention, fundraising, etc.

4. Deciding What To Share What stands out to you? What excites you most?
What jumps out as important for you or for the program/service?
Maybe there are trends with the data or comparisons?
What are you most proud about or excited about when you look at the data?
What do you really want others to know?
How do you want the data to tell a story?
What do you want others to do based on the information?
What do you want others to remember or share with others?
What stands out to you?
What excites you most?
How do you want the data to tell a story?

5. Steps in Sharing Identify your stakeholders
Determine data to share for each stakeholder, which may not be the same for each stakeholder
Decide the best format for each stakeholder, which may not be the same for each stakeholder
Other things to keep in mind:
Emphasize your findings
Acknowledge limitations
Make recommendations or conclusions
Be creative and professional

6. Share Results: Traditional Format
Report: Executive Summary 1-2 pages, Full Report all questions, Targeted Report focused information
Power Point: Watch font size, color/contrast, dark font on light background, probably don’t include everything
Presentations: Know your audience, allow time for questions
Infographic/flyers/posters: watch colors, don’t make too many points
Wordle/Word Cloud: represents qualitative graphically
Newletter: use words, graphics, colors. Keep to 2-4 pages max

7. Sharing Results: Social Media
Brief, creative, audience-driven, calendar-driven
Consider permanency, professional vs. fun
Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, You Tube, Instagram, Vimeo, Pinterest, website
Push people to your website

8. Sharing Results with Others
Keep results easy to read
Make text short, simple, and jargon-free
Include only relevant key points
Put results in an order that makes sense
Round numbers to whole percentages
Use lists, graphs, pictures, or colors
Label titles and visual aides
Use percentages rather than counts

9. Resource Examples
DSA MarComm:
Data Visualization:
Infographics:
Wordle:
Consult your Marketing and Communications departmental staff member or the DSA Marketing and Communications staff
Look at online resources

10. Contact Student Life Studies
Need Help?
Be Wise…
Contact Student Life Studies
studentlifestudies.tamu.edu