By Bill DeBaun, Senior Director of Data and Strategic Initiatives
Reading time: Five minutes
“I feel like we’ve struggled in the past with survey results. ‘Yes or no’ questions are almost worse to ask than not in my opinion. They leave you with a lot of gaps,” says Assistant Director of Washington State GEAR UP Annie Pocklington, at the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC), a National College Attainment Network (NCAN) member.
The insight came during a conversation reviewing a draft of a student-centered support model NCAN is developing through the Postsecondary Pathways Project (PPP).
WSAC is one of 15 state-level partners participating in the PPP.
WSAC still uses senior exit surveys to get feedback from students participating in GEAR UP, and they get a solid response rate, around 50% at last check. Despite this, what WSAC
has found difficult is an obstacle inherent to lots of survey research: the selection bias inherent in who does and doesn’t respond.
To advance and expand their insight and to center students’ voices and experiences, WSAC created a student advisory group in February 2022. It is currently slated to run through the end of their grant, until at least 2024.
Building relationships between GEAR UP and the students the program serves “is just such a huge part of getting quality feedback,” says Pocklington. That relationship-building is “a long haul” but one worth pursuing.
Despite the value Pocklington has seen with her student advisory group efforts, there have been challenges as well. Notably, matching the student advisory group’s composition with the student demographics GEAR UP serves has been difficult, not just in
terms of gender, race, and ethnicity, but also in terms of variety of postsecondary pathways and family structures, level of housing security, and representing learning differences. “Once we were explicit about what we were looking for we got a lot
more applicants and referrals,” explains Pocklington. GEAR UP staff interviewed students by giving them three open-ended questions, which resulted in “incredible conversations” revealing “amazing critical thinkers.” At the end of their initial hiring,
GEAR UP invited 11 students in to participate in the student advisory group. Since then, the student advisory group has grown by three to account for geographic regions in Washington the group had yet to represent.
One way to entice students to serve on the advisory group is compensation from the state that allows WSAC to pay students directly. Beyond the financial, though, Pocklington and her team often discuss what mutual benefits look like for this group. There
are ways to compensate students without paying them, after all, like helping students to build out their resumes, providing professional development opportunities, and even creating fun camaraderie among peers. Members of the student advisory group
continue to emphasize the importance of meeting in-person, which WSAC facilitates whenever feasible.
The student advisory group’s feedback helps to shape the access and attainment ecosystem in Washington. Advisory group members joined Washington’s GEAR UP staff at a professional development event last summer to help advise and build out student support-centered
work plans. Students joined their own school staff in portions of the programming to provide a student lens, served on a panel to share insight to practitioners working with students similar to them, and gathered around big questions like, “what is
the generational divide in communication we often times see between students and staff?” These students welcomed questions and helped staff wrestle with problems and solutions that had long been without intentional student perspective.
This relationship building has meant that GEAR UP is also able ask for help in building new program components with student voice at the center. Recently, the student advisory group helped develop a peer mentoring position posting on college campuses.
WSAC developed a draft and then asked students to review it, with specific attention given to what kind of peer mentor they would personally seek out on a campus, and how they would like to see that role described.
When the advisory group isn’t working on a specific service or offering, Pocklington follows the calendar year with these students according to the college access and attainment lifecycle by providing focus group opportunities. She leads with questions
like, “What does your college search process look like?” and “How are you thinking about life after high school?” The Student Advisory Committee gathers for meetings once a month, helping GEAR UP staff at the state level with more specific insight
into the student experience on a consistent basis. Students have shared about their path to understanding the financial aid process, detailed their decision-making process when deciding to apply to certain schools, outlined barriers in the scholarship
search process, and have been honest about their experiences with GEAR UP support in their schools – all while openly critiquing the systems they come into contact with. Advisory group members can speak to where they are in their educational journey
and process, which offers valuable insight for WSAC’s communications and programming to students across the state. This helps to, “bolster the way we provide these services the next time around,” Pocklington explains.
Pocklington hopes advisory group members can be honest about their struggles, joys, and experiences and find power in their voices through this work. While people often shy away from critique, GEAR UP knows transparency and reflexivity are essential to
bettering the student support they aim to provide. GEAR UP sees the voices of the students they serve not as a bonus to the work they are doing but as an essential to quality support in their programming.
For a very long time, NCAN has advocated for incorporating student voice into practice and policy and has tried to do the same with our own efforts whenever possible. WSAC’s considerable efforts convening and sustaining a statewide student advisory group
is an admirable commitment to lifting up students’ voices and perspectives for the benefit of current and future students. NCAN hopes other states will pursue similar efforts; after all, students often know best what is and is not working for them
and are willing to share that insight if adults and professionals are willing to listen.
For questions, comments, or support in getting your own student advisory group off the ground, Pocklington encourages you to reach out and begin dreaming. You can find more information about Washington State GEAR UP here or connect directly with Annie at anniep@wsac.wa.gov.
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