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aha! Process, Inc. welcomes opportunities to work with our partners to design and
implement assessments of our community and organizational programs. Using scientific research
methodology, aha! Process and partner organizations can examine links between program activities
and changes within audience behaviors and practices.
Qualitative or quantitative research methodologies—inventories, focus group discussions,
in-depth interviews, observational studies, exit studies—may be implemented according to
the program needs.
Much of the early work in higher education utilized Bridges Out of Poverty resources. These
included Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin'-By World, the program for individuals in poverty that
preceded Investigations into Economic Class in America for under-resourced college students.
For information on assessing implementation of the Bridges/Getting Ahead Sustainability Model,
click on research methods and instruments. These
methods and instruments may serve to guide evaluation at the college level.
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For specific reports and results, peruse the list below:
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Results from higher education.
The Workforce Development and Continuing Studies Department of Kent State University's
Salem campus was funded to provide services for the Getting Ahead program through a TANF grant
from the Columbiana County Department of Job and Family Services.
Beginning in 2006, Youngstown State University led a coalition of schools, workforce
development agencies, and healthcare employer partners in the development of a career pathway
project designed to assist low-wage, low-skill adults to enter and advance in health-related
occupations. The idea was to use Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin'-By World as the
preparation and launching pad for people's future stories of technical and professional careers
and economic stability. Buoyed by the success of that program, the college later began using
Investigations into Economic Class in America, the college version of Getting Ahead,
as the core course of a learning community offered for credit through the College of Health and
Human Services. As a measure of the success of this approach in preparing students to engage
in their colleges and communities, graduates of the program were invited to serve as researchers
on an October 2011 statewide report, Investing in Systemic Change for Ohio's Economic Success:
A Strategic Action Plan for Ohio's Career Pathways System (Ohio Career Pathways State/Regional
Team, 2011; see Addendum C: Voice of Consumer Report).
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