Evaluation of public school communication programs as perceived by public school directors of communications

This dissertation identified and described the current strategies used by public school directors of communications to evaluate the effectiveness of their communication program practices. To meet the research goals, a mail survey was distributed to a random sample of National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) members who function as director of communications for their school districts. Data were collected during January and February of 2003.; Research findings indicated that NSPRA respondents used all 27 evaluation strategies on the survey instrument and an additional 92 write-in strategies to evaluate the effectiveness of the their communication program practices. These strategies can be grouped into five strands that include, (a) accomplishment of communication goals and objectives, (b) internal or external surveys, (c) review of quantitative or qualitative results, (d) focus groups, and (e) comparative benchmarking techniques. The strategies most commonly used by school districts were, (a) accomplishment of communication goals and objectives, (b) review of number of community partnerships, (c) review of participant counts for events/meetings, (d) review of number of people accessing the district web site, and (e) review of feedback from “key communicators”.; The literature review determined that the single common research-based recommendation for evaluating the effectiveness of public school communication program practices is the accomplishment of goals and objectives. The most common evaluation strategy used by NSPRA respondents was also the accomplishment of goals and objectives, with 84.1% of them employing the strategy during the 2001–2002 school year.; Based on the results it is recommended that practitioners (a) maintain a comprehensive communications plan with embedded measurable goals and objectives, (b) implement yearly internal and external random sample survey procedures consistently over time and track trends, and (c) use a variety of focus groups each year and make sure that the members are representative of the diversity within the communities they serve.; This study established a baseline of current strategies that NSPRA directors of communications use to evaluate the effectiveness of their communication program practices. It is recommended that a similar study be conducted nationally with the goal of generalizing the research findings to all public schools in the United States.