My role was as Quantitative Research Intern, but my background with qualitative research methods brought my supervisor and Highest Awards Program Manager Stephanie Dawes to me for help in writing the survey.

We knew we wanted to see if the program was meeting its goals, but I had so many questions. What are the goals we are trying to meet? When was the last time the goals were revisited and revised to stay current with the modern needs of young people these days? What are the skills they should be learning? 

The organizational values had not changed, but the modern era has brought on a rapidly changing set of needs for young people transitioning into adulthood. So that's where we started–at the beginning–researching the most important skills to have entering into education and the workforce, and other important life skills in the modern world.

After we conducted this research, I crafted the survey to discover the answers to our questions with as little bias as possible. We then assessed the survey for length, prioritized the most important questions, and finalized it.