William T. Grant Foundation
In addition to providing the requisite yearly information on its staff, programs and grant making, this annual report offers insight into one foundation’s thinking about the need for improvements in the empirical measurement of youth outcomes.
Noting that data on the way settings such as families, peer networks, mentoring relationships, classrooms, schools and youth-serving organizations influence youth are “unfortunately constrained by the lack of good measures,” the foundation describes its commitment to the development of more effective and efficient ways to measure the social processes inherent in those settings. For example, one grantee is developing a measure of the effects of pro-social classroom norms on students’ positive classroom behavior. Others are working on improving the identification and measurement of adult-youth interactions in classrooms and youth organizations.
Other empirical methodologies that the foundation hopes to nurture focus on the roles of youth and adults in various settings, the distribution of decision-making power and organizational culture and climate. They include the effects of data aggregation on self-reported perceptions of environment, and how to increase the reliability of observational data-gathering. Free, 27 pages. (212) 752-0071, www.wtgrantfoundation.org/usr_doc/2007_Annual_Report.pdf.
