During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations increased virtual programming and adoption of online technologies. This article outlines the University of California assessment of tools for gathering data on participant learning outcomes from virtual educational programs. After assessing colleagues' experiences and searching for new web applications,…

Cooperative Extension professionals utilize proven qualitative techniques to collect and analyze information to make data-driven decisions that guide program direction and determine impact. While the process may not always look the same, it is indeed essential to ensure findings are credible and reflective of the data. A codebook is a valuable…

The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) uses a group 24-hour dietary recall (Gr24HDR) to measure changes in diet quality. Participant perceptions of the tool can guide implementation practices used by EFNEP Extension staff. Focus group (FG) sessions were conducted in five states and transcripts analyzed following a framework…

Reporting requirements for capturing data on the delivery of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) have evolved. University of Minnesota (U of M) Extension developed the SNAP Education Evaluation and Database System (SEEDS) to capture unduplicated participant information for SNAP-Ed programming conducted by U of M Extension…

The mobile food record™ (mFR™) is a novel app that allows for the tracking of individual food waste and addresses the limitations of current methods to accurately quantify food waste. Extension educators may use data from the mFR™ to create educational initiatives for food waste prevention and education that may be implemented in settings such as…

We describe a process for construction and use of a "dashboard" for monitoring the quality of in-person nonformal education programs. We followed the process to develop a 4-H special interest (SPIN) club dashboard, but the steps are applicable to any education program that includes instruction over multiple sessions. The dashboard…

Within Extension, certain personnel, facilitators, and volunteers expected to conduct research in the form of program evaluation may have little or no training in effective research design and practices. This circumstance can lead to difficulties in the implementation of evaluation procedures, particularly with regard to program evaluation…

The increasing use of geographic information system (GIS) technology in various fields suggests the need for professionals, including those in Extension, to be mindful of communicating data accurately and effectively. This article examines approaches to creating classes or groupings within data as well as the weaknesses of each approach. Data…

Extension faculty and staff are constantly planning, implementing, and evaluating programming efforts. Data from participants are needed for assessing changes in knowledge, attitude, and behavior through summative and formative evaluation. However, collecting these data can be time-consuming and hard to achieve. A technological tool called…

Extension professionals are increasingly using geographic information system (GIS) technology to develop and inform programs and services. In this article, we use a mapping exercise to demonstrate how the unit of data can be applied and inadvertently misrepresented in GIS mapping. We contrast the use of counts, percentages, and location quotients…

Survey IDs are short strings of unique characters assigned to each recipient in a sample population. Extension research can benefit from the improved organization of survey implementation and data collection, better researcher-respondent communication, and reduced survey material costs supported through the use of survey IDs. This article outlines…

Citizen science is quickly becoming a valuable tool in the Extension professional's tool kit. This is the case whether you are a 4-H agent looking to involve youth in agriscience and agriculture-related science, technology, engineering, and math experiential learning activities or an agriculture and natural resources agent seeking to help…

With today's technology, Extension professionals have a variety of tools available for program evaluation. This article describes an innovative platform called VoiceThread that has been used in many classrooms but also is useful for conducting virtual focus group research. I explain how this tool can be used to collect qualitative participant…

Although there have been calls for many years for Extension professionals to use secondary data in their work, finding appropriate data online can still be a challenge. With the multitude of data sources available online, it can be helpful to use the concept of developing a community portrait as the context for becoming proficient at locating…

Extension professionals employ many techniques and tools to obtain feedback, input, information, and data from stakeholders, research participants, and program learners. An information-gathering tool called Ketso is described in this article. This tool and its associated techniques can be used in all phases of program development, implementation,…