Getting Volunteers for HPAC at KSU

Marketing Research
Dr. Tuo Wang
Lindsay Wolfe, Katelyn Dye, and Maxwell O’Neal
8 December 2015

Project Introduction Our marketing research project is for the AmeriCorps, Katelyn is currently serving as a member. The AmeriCorps is starting a new student organization on the Kent State campus this year. This student organization is called a HPAC. A HPAC is a Health Professionals Affinity Community. The Health Professions Affinity Community (HPAC) is a newly designed pipeline program to engage students and advance their academic and career progress toward health professions. The program relies on existing community assets and bundling them in a manner that further supports student success. Students from varied circumstances can benefit from opportunities to apply academic learning in real-world circumstances and from learning how to employ existing and at times hidden personal and community resources to improve their community. The goals, strategies, and methods reflected in the HPAC program are consistent with finding ways to better meet the vast needs of the region, of finding and supporting qualified “Ohio” grown students from diverse backgrounds desiring to enter health professions. The key principle of the program is that students increase their academic scholarship, understand the value of research, further engage in the community, and become well prepared young adults who are able to achieve a level of preparation compatible with their health career aspirations. The mission of HPAC is advancing the health and success of students and their communities through mutual learning and engagement enriched by health professions education, workforce, and community partnerships. As a new student organization, the AmeriCorps needs help doing the marketing research to find out who they should make their target market and the best way to market these students on campus. HPAC’s normally target STEM and Public Health majors, but it is open to anyone. Since it is open to everyone this makes the target market confusing on whom exactly they should market. This research is important to the AmeriCorps, because even if it is not implemented this year; they will have the information from the completed research for the next years to come.

Problem Statement The main issue that the AmeriCorps has is how to introduce HPAC to Kent State University Students. Many AmeriCorps members are used to pitching HPAC to 6th grade through 12th grade students. Students in higher education are harder to pitch to- because they are already in college and probably already have a plan or an idea of what they want to do after undergrad. When AmeriCorps’ members pitch HPAC to students they appeal to middle through high schoolers by telling them about the pipelines to medical school and other graduate school options. Such as Northeast Ohio College of Medicine has seats saved for certain college students that plan on going to medical or pharmacy school. These students would complete their undergrad in about three years and as long as they kept up their grades, they would not have to compete for their seat at NEOMED. With that said higher education students want to know what a student organization can do for them, whether it is a resume builder, a direct connection with a future employer and or a graduate school or program. HPAC normally targets students interested in a health profession as a career. It is estimated that by 2020, The United States will have a shortage of 91,000 primary care physicians and other health related professionals. This is caused by the aging population and new healthcare reforms; America is in need of additional healthcare professionals. Therefore it is important that we educate students that are in the fields of public health, biology, pre-med, pre-pharmacy, nutrition, and many other majors that now is the perfect time to work toward a sustainable career in the field of health. The goal is to find the best way to promote HPAC and to inform students about the perks of HPAC. By having this information, in the future the AmeriCorps will be able to know what works and what doesn’t based on statistical numbers and real life numbers. What they want to let students know is that higher education HPAC members will be provided with a supportive pathway that will help them graduate with sustainable careers in the Health Professions, Sciences and Bio-Medical Research. It will expose its members to real community health concerns and provides the fundamental skills needed to address the issues. Also, it will allow and support students to be connected to a health professions and science learning community throughout their undergraduate academic course of study.
The Higher Education HPAC program is designed to: * Establish a supportive academic and career pathway for higher education students who want careers in the health professions, science and biomedical research. * Strengthen academic skills in students by providing opportunities to design and create scholarly programs and presentations. * Support student leadership skills by providing opportunities for students to act as tutors and mentors to high school students. * Expose students to working professionals in their field of study and provide them with opportunities to obtain Letters of Recommendations for transition to Professional School. * Make students more competitive for academic scholarships. Through these engaging opportunities, students obtain firsthand knowledge of science and health professions gaining inspiration to complete their undergraduate training. Belonging to an HPAC looks great on professional and graduate school applications!

Secondary Data Research The HPAC program started during the 2012-2013 academic year in a few high schools in Cleveland. The Northeast Ohio College of Medicine received funding for the AmeriCorps grant in 2013, they hired 20 full-time Corps members to start HPACs. They currently have 97 HPAC sites in 25 counties across the state of Ohio. They currently serve 1500 students annually. Furthermore, they have colleagues around the world who are starting HPACs in their own communities such as New Mexico, Missouri, and Portugal! The three main goals of HPAC are: 1) to encourage students to explore health care careers and 2) enhance non-academic skills (e.g., social-connectedness, self-management) that will bolster students’ success in their future endeavors, and 3) to build stronger, healthier communities by having students take the lead in addressing health disparities in their own hometown. Both the baseline and post-test surveys measure these three themes along with demographic information and questions used for programmic evaluation. Programmic evaluations can determine what is effective and what challenges the program experiences. Programmic evaluation results can illustrate the effectiveness of a program to stakeholders and community members. Data obtained from program evaluations can provide continuous quality improvement and can improve policy to better serve HPAC students. The program evaluation can improve knowledge of the program in order to plan for the future. The data received may provide a better understanding of the field of pipeline programs. At the beginning of the programmic evaluation process it is common to select performance measures. A performance measure is a specific goal that the program is trying to achieve. A performance measure is an operationally defined goal for the program to strive to perform. An example of a performance measure that could be measured would be: “Students participating in X program increased their knowledge of healthcare careers by 20% during the 2015-2016 academic year.”
For the HPAC program, the following performance measures have been selected to determine: * Whether students participating in the HPAC program increase their knowledge of health care professions

* Whether students participating in the HPAC program increase their social connectedness throughout the year.

* Whether students in the HPAC program become more intrinsically motivated as a result of participating in the HPAC program.

* Whether the HPAC program increases enrollment in college/university of participating students graduating high school during the 2015-2016 academic year. Unlike our marketing research project, the Northeast Ohio Medical School sends out the base line surveys after the programs have already started at each school (first week of December). The reason for this is their funders expect them to evaluate the programs they support. Without a robust evaluation, the HPACs will lose their funding. Evaluation helps them to get better continuous quality improvement and shows them which evaluation points to program aspects that are not effective. And lastly the evaluation helps them to grow our programs through enhanced support from the Northeast Ohio College of Medicine, our community partners, and future funders. The baseline questions asked in this research study are: * Do students in the HPAC program demonstrate enhanced career development, wellbeing, and academic development (e.g., achievement, motivation, self- management, and social connectedness) during the course of their participation in the HPAC program?

* Is increased HPAC program participation associated with enhanced career development, wellbeing, and academic development?

* Do students demonstrate an increased capacity to identify existing self and community assets?

* Do students in the HPAC program demonstrate an increased capacity to identify pressing health concerns and formulate community-based programs to address them?

* What are the associations between students’ career development, overall wellbeing, and academic development over time? Do changes in one predict changes in others over time? The Post- Test surveys for both research and evaluations are sent out after the school year has come to an end (approximately June 1). The Post- Test surveys the same questions asked in the baseline. Approximately 200 students take part of the evaluation efforts. Last year, the University of Akron became another Ohio University to start a HPAC. In order to find if students would be interested in the HPAC program at the University of Akron, Greta Lax distributed fliers through the student listserves in the College of Health Professions. Of the hundreds of students that were emailed fliers via the listserves, they were able to recruit eight to ten students who all focused on one shared project. Here at Kent State, the AmeriCorps members did the same. They sent out fliers through the College of Public Health listserves, and they picked a few days on campus to set up tables on different parts of campus to try to recruit and inform students of an upcoming informational meeting. This recruiting process gave them about thirty names and email addresses, but only about ten students attended the actual informational meeting held in October. Primary Data Research Our survey was circulated to our colleges and random people in the Student Center at various times. We have a total of 52 survey records that we will use to do analysis on. We created a two page questionnaire that asked various questions in order to try to pin down which people are going to be most likely to volunteer for HPAC. The middle section of our questionnaire contains various variables on a systematic differential scale that we will use to try to correlate these variables and willingness to volunteer.
Primary Data Analysis and Results Count of Survey # | Column Labels | | | | | | Row Labels | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Grand Total | 1 | 10 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 2 | 10 | 9 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 31 | Grand Total | 20 | 16 | 6 | 8 | 2 | 52 |

Count of Survey # | Column Labels | | | | | | Row Labels | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Grand Total | 1 | 8.08 | 6.46 | 2.42 | 3.23 | 0.81 | 21 | 2 | 11.92 | 9.54 | 4.00 | 4.77 | 1.19 | 31 | Grand Total | 20 | 16 | 6 | 8 | 2 | 52 |

This is a cross tabulation of sex, and cumulative hours that would be able to volunteered monthly for HPAC. The first table is actual results with the second table being calculated expected results. By initial glance it may seem like females are more likely to volunteer more hours. We can use a Chi-Test function to test if this is actually the case. With a value of 0.46616103, this tells us there is no real correlation between being female and wishing to volunteer more. This is good because we don’t have to waste money targeting specifically females. t-Test: Two-Sample Assuming Unequal Variances | | | | | | | Variable 1 | Variable 2 | Mean | 3.133333 | 2.054054 | Variance | 1.552381 | 1.385886 | Observations | 15 | 37 | Hypothesized Mean Difference | 0 | | df | 25 | | t Stat | 2.874774 | | P(T<=t) one-tail | 0.00407 | | t Critical one-tail | 1.708141 | | P(T<=t) two-tail | 0.008141 | | t Critical two-tail | 2.059539 | |

This is a T-test, testing the difference in likeliness to volunteer for HPAC, and class standing. Variable 1 is underclassmen (freshmen and sophomores) while variable 2 is upperclassmen (juniors and seniors). From initial glance, it seems underclassmen have a much higher mean of 3.1 compared to 2.0. While this may look promising, our t-test can tell us if this is actually meaningful. Our test gives us a final T value of 2.87, which is higher than the critical values for either one or two-tailed distributions. This means that underclassmen are statistically proven to have responded that they are more likely to volunteer.

t-Test: Paired Two Sample for Means | | | | | | | Variable 1 | Variable 2 | Mean | 4.115385 | 3.038462 | Variance | 0.653092 | 1.371041 | Observations | 52 | 52 | Pearson Correlation | 0.119546 | | Hypothesized Mean Difference | 0 | | df | 51 | | t Stat | 5.791686 | | P(T<=t) one-tail | 2.17E-07 | | t Critical one-tail | 1.675285 | | P(T<=t) two-tail | 4.34E-07 | | t Critical two-tail | 2.007584 | |

This is another kind of t-test. In this table, I am comparing the likelihood a respondent said they would volunteer with HPAC with personal importance of personal fitness. With a T value of 5.79 and critical values of 1.67 and 2.00, we can say that there is statistically significant correlation between these two variables. SUMMARY OUTPUT | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Regression Statistics | | | | | | | | Multiple R | 0.878955 | | | | | | | | R Square | 0.772561 | | | | | | | | Adjusted R Square | 0.686504 | | | | | | | | Standard Error | 0.655604 | | | | | | | | Observations | 52 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ANOVA | | | | | | | | | | df | SS | MS | F | Significance F | | | | Regression | 14 | 54.01987 | 3.858562 | 8.977232 | 4.56E-08 | | | | Residual | 37 | 15.90321 | 0.429816 | | | | | | Total | 51 | 69.92308 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Coefficients | Standard Error | t Stat | P-value | Lower 95% | Upper 95% | Lower 95.0% | Upper 95.0% | Intercept | 1.55 | 1.16 | 1.34 | 0.19 | -0.79 | 3.90 | -0.79 | 3.90 | Fitness | 0.09 | 0.14 | 0.65 | 0.52 | -0.19 | 0.37 | -0.19 | 0.37 | Greek | 0.13 | 0.09 | 1.39 | 0.17 | -0.06 | 0.32 | -0.06 | 0.32 | Events | -0.17 | 0.12 | -1.42 | 0.16 | -0.42 | 0.07 | -0.42 | 0.07 | Internship | 0.09 | 0.15 | 0.61 | 0.54 | -0.21 | 0.39 | -0.21 | 0.39 | Healthcare Career | -0.08 | 0.09 | -0.91 | 0.37 | -0.25 | 0.10 | -0.25 | 0.10 | Volunteer Opportunities | 0.85 | 0.15 | 5.77 | 0.00 | 0.55 | 1.14 | 0.55 | 1.14 | Résumé Experience | 0.10 | 0.16 | 0.62 | 0.54 | -0.23 | 0.43 | -0.23 | 0.43 | Graduate school | 0.03 | 0.11 | 0.23 | 0.82 | -0.20 | 0.26 | -0.20 | 0.26 | People | -0.35 | 0.15 | -2.31 | 0.03 | -0.65 | -0.04 | -0.65 | -0.04 | Interest in Healthcare | 0.37 | 0.11 | 3.26 | 0.00 | 0.14 | 0.60 | 0.14 | 0.60 | On Campus | 0.23 | 0.25 | 0.95 | 0.35 | -0.27 | 0.73 | -0.27 | 0.73 | Own a Car | -0.49 | 0.36 | -1.36 | 0.18 | -1.23 | 0.24 | -1.23 | 0.24 | Class Standing | -0.62 | 0.27 | -2.29 | 0.03 | -1.18 | -0.07 | -1.18 | -0.07 | Sex | -0.46 | 0.23 | -2.04 | 0.05 | -0.92 | 0.00 | -0.92 | 0.00 |

This table shows regression analysis done on our data comparing respondents’ likelihood of volunteering for HPAC with the variables listed down the left of the table. We have three variables that show statistical significance in relation to our key variable. Working with people, a career in healthcare, and class standing were all significant variables that can be used to determine who to target.
Conclusions and Recommendations Our data was able to provide some very revealing insight into HPAC’s problem. We were able to define a demographic that HPAC should target when the official attempt to start HPAC at Kent State is made. Initially, it seemed females might be more likely to volunteer. With our chi-squared test, we were able to determine this was not true, so money should not be wasted on targeting a specific sex. Next, we were able to prove a statistical relationship between upperclassmen, underclassmen, and their likelihood to volunteer with an unpaired t-test. The data shows that underclassmen are significantly more likely to volunteer. Then we compared how important respondents rated personal fitness with how likely they said they would be to volunteer. For this we used a paired t-test. The test shows that the data shows a significant positive relationship between these two variables. Finally we did a regression test between respondents’ likeliness to volunteer and many of our other variables. The regression test found that working with people, a career in healthcare, and class standing were all significant variables that can be used to determine who to target. All of these conclusions give us a clear picture of who to target. Underclassmen should be targeted on campus, and can be reached in the recreational facilities and by major. Also, specific majors can be picked out to target people such as anything in healthcare and fields that involve working with people; social work, etc. In conclusion, we have defined our target audience and also defined where these people will likely be found.