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• This report has 11 bars, with each bar representing a different outcome indicator.
• Using different colors and numbers, each bar shows the percentage of youth who score in each of three scoring categories: Room to Grow, Doing Fine and Doing Great.

• How each Club is doing against the Fall 2003 national field-test sample on each outcome indicator
• Whether there are especially strong or weak outcomes at the Club that suggest a need for more or renewed attention or improved support

Let’s look at the Club Benefits bar as an example.
The bar at the bottom shows the scores for the Club Benefits outcome. What this bar shows could be described as follows:

Less than one third (27 percent) of the survey takers at Boys & Girls Club of Anywhere are doing great in terms of the benefits they gain from coming to the Club. Nearly half (48 percent) are doing fine. Another quarter (25 percent) have given responses that show room for improvement; they report fewer benefits from their Club participation than did the other 75 percent of the Club youth who were in the survey sample.

Now look at the other bars on the chart.
Think about the results shown by each bar. How would you interpret the results for each of the outcome indicators on the report?

• Two of the strongest outcome indicators at Boys & Girls Club of Anywhere are Technological Skills and Leadership. For both of these indicators, about 75 percent of the survey takers are doing fine or doing great.
• Two of the weakest indicators are Moral Compass and Tolerance. For Moral Compass, 29 percent of the survey takers have room to grow. For Tolerance, 27 percent of the survey takers have room to grow.

Go to Using Results to Improve Club Programming for ideas about how to put your results into practical action.
 

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Report 2: Rates of Participation in Eight Categories of Club Activities by Grade Level

Click here to look at a sample of Report 2.

TIPS FOR READING REPORT 2

• There will be one, two, or three color-coded bars on the report for each activity type.
• If all three bars show up for each category on the report, then data are available for all three grade groups. (Leadership is an exception, because this outcome was only measured among middle- and high- school respondents during the Fall 2003 national field-test.)
• If only one or two bars show up, then either the Club did not get survey responses from youth in one or more grade levels, or the indicator is not included in the survey for that grade group.

WHAT DOES REPORT 2 TELL US?

• Provides a snapshot of participation by activities
• Whether youth in each age group participate in a rich array of activities
• What types of activities may be under- or over-used within a particular age group

Look at the first group of bars in the report, Sports/Fitness.
These bars show the percentage of survey takers at our sample Club who say they participate in Sports/Fitness programs. At this Club, almost all of the youth participate in Sports/Fitness programs.

• Is there a difference between the participation levels of high-school, middle-school and elementary-school members in Sports/Fitness programs?
• Are any of these differences of concern to our Club, and, if they are, what do we want to plan to do about them?
• If these differences are not a problem, are there other areas that concern us?

Look at the second group of bars in the report, Homework Help.
At this Club, 72 percent of elementary- and high-school youth participate in homework help, and 86 percent of middle-school youth participate in homework activities.

• Are these percentages about right for the youth we serve, or should more elementary- and middle-school youth be participating in homework activities?
• If the answer to the previous question is yes, how can we change our elementary- and middle- school homework help programs to encourage greater participation?
• What encourages our middle-school youth to participate more actively in homework than others? Is this the right balance for youth in our program?

Look at the rest of the bars in this report.
What were the lowest participation scores? Fifty-nine percent of elementary youth participated in Making Good Choices (Health and Life Skills) programs, but more than 75 percent of older youth participated in these programs. Forty-seven percent of high-school youth participated in Arts programs, but more middle- and elementary-school youth participated in these programs. A little more than half of the middle- and high-school youth participated in Leadership activities at our sample Club. (Remember, the survey does not ask elementary youth about leadership activities.)

• Are these percentages about right for the youth we serve, or should more youth participate in leadership activities?
• Is this the right balance for youth in our programs?
• If the answer to the previous question is no, how can we change our programs to encourage greater participation among elementary- and middle-school-age youth?

Go to Using Results to Improve Club Programming for ideas about how to put your results into practical action.

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Report 3: Deepening Impact: Outcome Indicator Scores by Length of Club Membership

Click here to look at a sample of Report 3.

TIPS FOR READING REPORT 3

• Indicators are organized by the outcome category in which they belong, i.e., Deepening Impact, Caring Youth, Responsible Youth and Productive Youth.
• All 11 indicators are listed in the second column, but remember that only high-school youth are surveyed on the Employment Competence indicator, and only middle-school and high-school youth are surveyed on the Leadership indicator.
• The number of survey takers in each category (fourth column) is important. The scores are most reliable if 30 or more youth are in a category. The more surveys administered, the more reliable the data. When less than 30 youth were surveyed in an indicator category, the data are less reliable than they should be.
• The last three columns (Room to Grow, Doing Fine and Doing Great) summarize scores on each indicator for three sub-groups of youth: youth who have been Club members for one year or less, between one and two years and more than three years.

WHAT DOES REPORT 3 TELL US?

• The extent to which the length of time members are involved in the Club may affect whether they have room to grow, are doing fine or are doing great in the different outcome indicators

Look at the data for the Club Benefits indicator for our sample Club.
Among this group, whether they have been members less than one year or more than three years, about a third of our survey takers have room to grow on this indicator. For youth who have been members for less than one year, about 28 percent have room to grow and only 10 percent are doing great. For youth who have been members between one and two years, there is a better balance in this indicator: about 24 percent still have room to grow, but about 32 percent are doing great. For youth who have been members for three or more years, about 24 percent have room to grow, and about 31 percent are doing great.

Based on our sample Club, what should we think about as we look at the different indicators on this report?

• Which indicators suggest the greatest room to grow for all members, whether they have been members for a long or short time?
• Are there some indicators that seem to be affected significantly by the length of Club membership? Which indicators are those?
• On which indicators do we want to focus to encourage greater benefits for youth?
• What can we change in our programming or retention strategies to encourage greater development among youth who remain with the Club for more than one year?

Now that you can read and interpret the Tool Kit reports that can be generated from your Club’s youth survey data, it’s time to think about how you can use the results to improve your program. Go to Using Results to Improve Club Programming for ideas about how to put your results into practical action.

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