Assessment Aha! Moment #3: You don't need to be a statistician.

Assessment Aha Moment #3: You don’t need to be a statistician to conduct assessment.

                Truth: I think I thought you needed a PhD in research methods to do this stuff—and conversely, that my skills were extremely lacking. What was I thinking? Lots of librarians are using statisticians. Lots of them are making “the ask” to their offices of institutional assessment for help. Many of them are partnering with faculty and other external groups on campus. And, related my last Aha! Moment where out outlined our collective lack of self-esteem, we seem to be surprised when these people are excited to help. Another related myth I dispelled for myself at this conference is, “we have to have all of our ducks in a row in order to get started.”  Instead of doing all of the things possible and doing them perfectly, we can start by answering one question, and then another. Many institutions were creating working groups to map out the assessment they wanted to complete in an assessment plan and then building that over time.