The NIRSA Canada Research and Assessment Team (Kevin Wilson, Bjorn Billehaug, Tanya Angus, Andrew Pettit) has developed an assessment tool to help measure the impact of virtual wellness program offerings on our campuses.

The increase in virtual wellness programming during the COVID-19 Pandemic has been exponential and will likely continue to be a program delivery platform well into the future. Assessing the impact of virtual programming on our campuses and combing these into a combined dataset will help NIRSA Canada to:

  • Distribute data and best practices when it comes to virtual program delivery across our region.
  • Share data to help inform future virtual wellness programming in our region.
  • Determine if virtual programming is meeting (holistic) physical, social and mental wellbeing outcomes.
  • Communicate virtual wellness program success stories.

We need your help in distributing the Virtual Program Participant Survey and collecting data for the remainder of the fall term and during the winter term. A Google Forms survey template is available here. If you’d like to facilitate the survey in another platform/mechanism please click here to view the survey question set and skip logic sequence. A Qualtrics example can be found here. We have provided these examples to aid you in the creation of your institution’s survey and to highlight the importance of maintaining the question order for the future of data analysis.

The survey responses collected can be used for your own analysis, however, we are requesting that this information is also shared with the Research and Assessment Team via an Excel spreadsheet once data has been collected. In order for the data to be combined, we ask that you do not alter the question set by adding or deleting questions. This will ensure we can merge the excel spreadsheets and analyze the data efficiently. Feel free to add your own logo and branding for distribution purposes.

The Excel Spreadsheet with your school’s data can be downloaded through the survey instrument you’ve chosen in either numeric or character form, for example of what that looks like click here. While we prefer numeric, either numeric or character are sufficient. Once data collection is completed, please send the excel spreadsheet to Kevin Wilson (kes2wils@uwaterloo.ca). Additionally, please include a very brief description of the program assessed using the instrument (for example, intramurals, fitness, nutrition, etc) allowing us to compare similar programs.

The Research and Assessment team will be analyzing the regional data early in the spring after the conclusion of winter program delivery. The general findings of this analysis will be shared with NIRSA Canada members in the spring. We will not reveal institution names unless we have received authorization from you as the institution representative. In the case we find a school that has made a particularly positive impact, we will likely ask that institution if they are willing to share details and strengths of their program for the purpose of learning.

Disclaimer: As part of this process NIRSA Canada advises that you consult with your institutions regarding service quality assessments before administering. This can likely be done through the Office of Institutional Research and Planning and/or Research Ethics Board/office. If your campus has an Office of Institutional Research and Planning, we suggest you try there first. Further, we suggest that this project is framed as a ‘quality assurance’ project rather than a ‘research’ project.

If you need assistance with delivery platforms or have questions about how to submit your data to the Research and Assessment Team please contact: Kevin Wilson, kes2wils@uwaterloo.ca.

Thank you in advance for assisting in collecting relevant and timely data to help inform future  virtual program delivery within our Canadian region.

NIRSA Canada Research and Assessment Team

Kevin Wilson – PhD Student, University of Waterloo

Bjorn Billehaug – Manager of Recreation, Mount Royal University

Tanya Angus – Director Recreation Services, University of Manitoba

Andrew Pettit – Director, Recreation, Equity & Active Well-Being, Ryerson University