Design School: Setting the Experience Bar for Evidence-based Design
As we work to reinvent and redefine traditional secondary education, we are committed to continuous learning and sharing the lessons we learn with others in our space. Our goal is to further best practices within the youth skills conversation and use our insights and research to build a robust body of evidence that other implementers can leverage to serve youth.
We believe that education should be tied directly to improved life outcomes for youth, and our Research and Development (R&D) efforts ensure we continue gathering the evidence that allows us to strengthen this link by iterating upon what works. Our obsession with impact and with making evidence- based decisions led us to create an “Experience Bar.”
This measurement tool helps us to connect Research to Development: ensuring our Design Team integrates the key components youth should “experience” to replicate the impact our proven in-school solution has produced. As we’ve continued to create scalable student-centered solutions across contexts, we have found it critical to ground these models in evidence by defining the learning experience that has led to improved life outcomes for youth according to our rigorous evaluations. The Experience Bar details the activities which fulfill each of our core intervention components — including 1) practical instruction on leadership and entrepreneurship skills, 2) hands-on practice and mentorship, and 3) continuous feedback and learning assessments — as well as the duration and quality needed to successfully fulfil each.
Overall, the Experience Bar details the minimum youth intervention needed to lead to the impact described within our Theory of Change. You could think of our Experience Bar like an old family recipe: You know that by following the recipe – putting in certain ingredients in the right amounts and in the right order – you’ll make a delicious dish. In the same way, Educate! knows that by following a tried and tested recipe (our Experience Bar) we will guarantee our desired outcomes (meaningful impact on youth).
Each of Educate!’s models are designed to meet this Bar by leading young people through a variety of tested experiences, which through rigorous evaluation, we know lead to impact. Each model is then measured using an impact evaluation or rigorous quantitative and qualitative analysis. If a model successfully delivers the components of the Bar and demonstrates learner impact, we will continue scaling the solution, innovating on its delivery to strengthen impact and increasing its cost-effectiveness. If results show that the model falls short of Educate!’s standard for impact, we invest in additional R&D to identify which components can be strengthened to ensure we are providing youth with the long-term life skills we intend.