A Community-Engaged Approach to Survey Development

Validating an Engagement Outcomes Tool with Community Partners

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18060/29318

Abstract

Universities often measure community engagement by institutional outputs, ignoring outcomes relevant to community partners. This stems from a lack of evaluation frameworks that capture diverse partnerships and contexts, which are essential for understanding impact and authentic collaboration. When evaluation is one-sided, it risks misrepresenting impact and marginalizing community perspectives. To shift institutional evaluation policies centered on transactional reporting toward bidirectional impact assessment, investigators from Indiana University Indianapolis (IUI), in Indiana, led the co-creation of a new community engagement evaluation framework. The project engaged 16 faculty, 2 staff members, and 24 community partners through semi-structured interviews and focus-group cognitive interviews (FGCI) to identify relevant engagement outcomes. Centering partners as co-creators challenged existing institutional practices and facilitated a critical shift in the university's valuation of community knowledge. Navigating this change revealed significant disparities between institutional terminology, collaboration categorizations, and partners' lived experiences, necessitating major structural revisions to the evaluation tool before piloting. A key lesson for managing similar realignments of engagement programs is that deep, qualitative stakeholder engagement is vital for successfully transitioning institutional measurement frameworks to reflect authentic collaboration with communities.

Author Biographies

Silvia C Garcia, Indiana University Indianapolis

Silvia Garcia (Corresponding Author) is the Director of Research and Assessment at Indiana University Indianapolis Office of Community Engagement. She facilitates and conducts research that involves participation and close collaboration with community partners in projects designed to further community development. She has a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, a Master of Education from Harvard University, and a Master of Public Affairs from IU Indianapolis.

Latosha Rowley, Indiana University Indianapolis

Latosha M. Rowley is an adjunct professor of early education literacy at IU Indianapolis School of Education and program manager with the IU Indianapolis Office of Community Engagement. Her research focuses on K-12 literacy instruction and 2-generation family engagement in urban school settings. She received her PhD in Urban Education Studies, focusing on Educational Leadership.

Jim Grim, Indiana University Indianapolis

Jim Grim, retired Director of University/Community School Partnerships in the Office of Community Engagement at IU Indianapolis, is a Community Schools scholar and advocate. Previously, a high school teacher, public relations practitioner, and adjunct university faculty. He helped create the Indiana Community Schools Network in 2015, which facilitates the engagement of 215 school communities throughout the Hoosier State in sharing advocacy, best practices, and professional development activities.

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Published

2026-05-20

Issue

Vol. 37 No. 1 (2026): Evolving Higher Education: Organizational Change and Institutional Transformation through Leadership

Section

Research Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Silvia C Garcia, Latosha Rowley, Jim Grim

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.