Data Collection Techniques in Aquatic Education: Getting Real Numbers Now and Stockpiling for Future Evaluation

In recent times, the importance of program evaluation has become more readily apparent to the aquatic education community. However, little has been done to standardize methodologies for data collection. It is important for programs to be able to provide reliable numbers for specific program approaches in a timely fashion in order to maintain administrative support. In the long run, proper data collection is needed to analyze the effectiveness of specific program approaches and ensure limited resources (e.g. time and money) are responsibly allocated. Being able to get real numbers now is especially important for newer program approaches that consume a significant amount of limited resources. In Kansas, an outreach approach that has needed real numbers now is the mobile aquarium. For the mobile aquarium we wanted to quantify public contacts. To do this, we adapted creel and angler survey methods commonly used to determine the number of anglers at a particular body of water. Specifically, over the course of three years we conducted instantaneous counts and recorded efforts (i.e. exhibit viewing times) at aquarium events. To stockpile for future evaluations, we have standardized data collection for all Fish KS program approaches. Data collection includes specific individual participant, event, and volunteer information. In the future, conducting dataminning and combining this database with our license database will allow us to determine which program approaches, combination of program approaches, which giveaway items, et cetera were most effective in increase angling participation for specific population segments. With a little coordination real numbers now and extremely in-depth future evaluations are possible.