Case Study:
A RESEARCH project by Marketry into measuring the soft outcomes of schemes with young people has won a top award
Marketry, a specialist public sector research and evaluation consultancy, was commissioned by Connexions South London to find out how to measure the real, but hard to quantify, benefits of its projects such as improved social skills or self confidence. And the research was so intelligent and thorough it won the Research by an Organisation category in the National Career Awards 2006, hosted by the Institute of Careers and Guidance.
Judy Wilson, founder and managing director of Marketry said: "I am delighted to have won this award. Just because soft outcomes are hard to measure doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. There are a lot of professionals working hard to make a difference to young people’s lives and finding a way to measure their success would justify the expense and validate their efforts as well as identifying which projects work best"
The research was funded by the European Social Fund which is running a £4 million project with Connexions South London, expected to benefit more than 17,000 13 to 19-year-olds with advice, support and personal development services.
When Marketry took on the project, the researchers looked first at defining soft outcomes and found they included social skills and organisational abilities as well as logical steps towards "hard outcomes" such as getting somewhere to live before starting a qualification.
They found that, with young people, soft outcomes could be confused with other maturing effects and changes in people’s lives so that, sometimes, what appeared to be a result of a project may have happened anyway.
And they warned that soft outcomes are not always permanent as many people go through peaks and troughs in life.
When they looked at "providers" of training or activities, they found some did not have systems and others did not collect data which made it harder to quantify their success.
Jeremy Thorn, Development Manager at South London Connexions said "the project has been very useful in analysing what providers do. Marketry carried out this project with great rigour. Everything was looked at with sensitivity and a creative approach."
