Interactive Session: Measuring The Impact Of Connection To Community

As awareness of the value of community engagement increases, programs associated with community engagement will be called upon more and more to evaluate program outcomes. This paper supports an interactive session that provides a wide variety of tools related to the use of quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods approaches to evaluate how well and how much those involved in a community benefit from it. These tools are presented in the context of two different research studies where the evaluation of various community outcomes is a central goal of each study. Instruments used in each study and their validity for studying community are presented and provided in a manner readily transferrable to other researchers or practitioners who are studying the quality of community and community engagement. Challenges posed by human studies are also discussed. The goal of the session is to equip participants with the insight gained by these and related studies into the importance of community engagement and provide instruments for those involved in the development of communities to evaluate their own successes.