Future City 2013-14: Evaluation Report

Concord Evaluation Group (CEG) conducted an evaluation study to learn about the Future City’s impact on students as well as to discover ways to enhance Future City for future implementation. In addition to exploring the program’s impacts, with this study we also had an opportunity to explore potential differences between students who compete at their Regional competitions only versus students who make it to the National competition. In collaboration with DiscoverE, CEG developed four surveys to collect feedback from students, parents, educators, and engineer mentors. These data collection instruments are included in the Appendix. As explained earlier, CEG conducted a similar evaluation of Future City in 2012. Thus, most of the questions used in 2012 were also included in the 2014 instruments in order to explore possible changes over time. The 2014 surveys were administered online only (which differs from the 2012 evaluation when all of the surveys were administered by paper). The surveys were optimized for responding via smartphone or computer. At each regional competition and at the national competition, participants were invited to respond to the survey. Methods for inviting participants varied – coordinators at some competitions distributed postcards that contained the survey invitation, including the web address (URL). At some events, the survey was announced verbally. In addition, after the competitions, email reminders were sent to educators and engineer mentors to encourage greater levels of participation.