Just in By The nUMBers 9.8 The average number of points demonstrating higher levels of understanding in a direct assessment survey The University of North Carolina Wilmington recently published a study that illustrated the value of direct assessment as a means of evaluating various resident assistant and peer education programs. Unlike previous assessment tools, which merely present the respondent’s opinion of the program and the education they received, direct assessment provides empirical results that demonstrate the program’s effectiveness. In the first part of the study, resident assistants were tested on their knowledge of what they were about to be trained on before the class and were then re-tested immediately after the class, at the mid-year training session, and at the end of the year. While the higher scores indicated the resident assistant program’s effectiveness, parts of the university’s CROSSROADS peer educator substance abuse prevention program were found to need re-tooling as a result of the direct assessment. For more information see http://onlinelibrary.wiley. com/doi/10.1002/abc.21103/pdf. 12 Talking STickhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/abc.21103/pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/abc.21103/pdf