Hacking Your Mind: Facebook Formative Evaluation

Are you interested in an innovative approach to collecting a large amount of formative data via Facebook? RMC Research Corporation conducted a formative evaluation for Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) to ensure the social media tag lines and clips created by OPB engage the target audiences. The primary target audience for the Hacking Your Mind (HYM) television series is the PBS primetime television viewing audience. According to the PBS Research Audience Insight 2016 Annual Report, the PBS primetime audience is older (median age of 65) and college educated (43% have a 4-year degree). To broaden participation beyond the typical PBS viewer, the formative evaluation included 3 study groups: (1) Teens aged 15–18, (2) Millennials aged 19–34, and (3) Gen-Xers aged 35–50. Within the targeted study groups for this evaluation, RMC Research aimed for equal representation of groups underrepresented in STEM. RMC Research and OPB collaborated in February 2019 to create a formative evaluation plan and online formative survey. The goal in recruitment was to capture an adequate aggregate sample size and by subgroups to allow for RMC Research to conduct the planned analyses. Formative evaluation participants were recruited across the United States via Facebook ads. Data were collected for approximately 3 weeks and resulted in a primary analytic sample of 769 respondents.