From: Fred Rodgers and Associates
Date: May 24, 2001
To: Whom it may concern
Re: Evaluation of Todd Denny Workshop Questionnaires
We undertook an independent audit of the evaluation questionnaires
administered at seven workshops conducted by Todd Denny in 2000 and 2001. We
found a pattern of high evaluative ratings by the workshop attendees who
returned the forms. The high ratings were sustained without notable exception
over seven data sets.
- 41 Student-athletes in a violence prevention workshop, March 2001,
Peninsula College, Port Angeles, WA
- 16 Experts in sexual assault prevention programs, Washington State
Coalition, May, 2000, Wenatchee, Washington
- 34 K-12th Grade teachers attending a "School Violence" teacher training
session, January, 2001, Tacoma, WA
- 19 K-12th Grade teachers attending the Washington State Prevention
Summit, October, 2000, Yakama, WA
- 6 college personnel, who participated in a "Sexual Aggression 101"
Workshop, November, 2000, Rock Springs, Wyoming
- 63 undergraduate students in a "Sexual Aggression 101" Workshop at the
Baccus and Gamma Conference , November, 2000, St. Louis, Missouri
- 25 attendees at the "Male Violence Prevention Workshop at the Baccus and
Gamma Conference , November, 2000, St. Louis, Missouri
Our findings indicate a consistent and uniformly high evaluation of the
workshop experience by the participants. On a Likert scale of 1-5, [with five
as the highest rating], Todd Denny's average ratings ranged from 4.3 to 4.8.
College personnel, classroom teachers, professional conference attendees,
experts in the field of male aggression and student-athletes awarded equally
high ratings to their workshop experiences.
There were no significant differences in the ratings awarded by females
when compared to their male counterparts. There were no significant
differences in the participant's ratings of the content, presentation,
resources and total merit of their workshop experience. All were rated equally
highly.
We performed a stringent test by reexamining the questionnaires after
excluding all respondents who awarded only the highest ratings to their
experiences, [to control for the contribution of indiscriminately high raters
to the total groups' averages]. The total group's mean ratings were 4.5
[including the high raters] and the residual group's mean ratings were 4.3 [on
a scale of 5]. The difference is neither statistically [.05] nor practically
significant. Again, we found participants to view Todd Denny's workshops to be
of high merit.
Voluntary comments, written on the questionnaires, corroborated our general
conclusions. Ninety-one percent of the respondents said they would recommend
these workshops to their colleagues and to professional organizations for
sponsorship in the future. Respondents wrote in 194 gratuitous comments of
high praise on their questionnaires.
Our summary judgment is that Todd Denny's workshops are consistently
perceived to be meritorious by the seven groups of clients represented by
these samples. Suggestions for program improvement were offered by 9% of the
respondents. We found no contraindications to the pattern of high evaluations
in our audit.
FAR and Associates
June 15, 2001
Champaign, Illinois
