After our first Little Builders sessions, post-workshop surveys came back at 100% satisfaction. It is a number we report, and it is also a number we have learned to read skeptically.
Why the number is high
Several forces push satisfaction scores up. Families who choose to attend a free science workshop are already inclined toward it. Surveys handed out at the end of a session capture people at their most positive. Children asked whether they liked something in front of an adult tend to say yes.
None of this means the workshops failed. It means satisfaction is measuring enthusiasm, not learning.
What we started measuring instead
We now ask students to explain one idea back to us in their own words, and we record whether the explanation is accurate. We ask what they would tell a family member about water at home. We track how many students return for a second session, which is a behavioral signal rather than a stated one.
These measures are messier and harder to summarize on a slide. They are also far more informative, because they occasionally tell us something went wrong.
The general lesson
A metric that never delivers bad news is not a metric. Small organizations especially need at least one measure capable of embarrassing them, or growth becomes indistinguishable from momentum.