How does our family engagement compare to others nationally?
Programs using the Parent Gauge tool are often interested in understanding how their average scores compare to their peers nationally. They want to know whether a score of 4.0, for example, is good or bad relatively speaking. Parent Gauge provides users with an Excel workbook that allows them to do this comparison.
By typing in their average score on each question, programs can see what percentile they are performing at nationally. This allows them to see where they performed well compared to peers and where they lagged behind their peers. By considering what components of their family engagement efforts are relevant to each question, programs can identify potential opportunities for improvement and can set goals to measure their progress.
ANALYSIS
Programs type in their average score of each question on one tab of an Excel workbook and are then able to review the graphs on a subsequent tab. The Excel workbook shows a purple diamond on the graph to indicate the program’s average score and provides a percentile score as a percentage.
For example, a percentile score of 73% means that the program score was higher than 73% of programs that year. There is a graph for each individual question with the tool, allowing programs to see for which questions they are very high up on the hill (performing better than many of their peers) and for which questions they are at the bottom of the hill (performing lower than many of their peers.)
ADDITIONAL DETAILS
AUDIENCE: Leadership, management, direct staff
LEVEL OF ANALYSIS: Program
DIFFICULTY: Basic
CONTENT AREA: Parent engagement
DATA SOURCES: Parent Gauge, Excel
CONSIDERATIONS AND CAVEATS: As with any yearly snapshot of data, the outcomes related to the year may, or may not, be the result of actions taken by the program or its staff during the program year.
Therefore, it is best to look at data trends and multiple data sources since the data snapshot does not control for important variables such as how many children have received multiple years of service, how many children in the group may have a disability service plan and what that plan entails, as well as various other factors that may substantially impact the progress, or lack thereof, within a single program year. For the reasons previously indicated and others, this data should not be used to evaluate the effectiveness of individual staff throughout the organization.
TECHNICAL APPENDIX
All Parent Gauge users can have access to the Excel workbook that allows them to do this analysis.
Users who don’t have it already merely need to email parentgauge@nhsa.org and request the Snapshot Workbook.
In order to use the workbook, programs should first log in to Parent Gauge and click on “Reports” and then “Baseline Reports.”
In the “Filters” bar on the left side of the screen, users should select the evaluation period they’re interested in observing (“Post” is recommended, but not required.) Users should ensure they remove all additional filters, including the date range, before pressing the “Filter” button.
Then, users will be able to see all of their average scores for the given evaluation period.
Then, users should open the Snapshot Workbook and start on the “Enter Averages Here” tab. Users should type in their average score for each question in the appropriate box.
Once scores are entered, users can proceed to the “Graphs” tab to view results.
CONTACT
Parent Gauge Team - parentgauge@nhsa.org