The Stories Statistics Tell

Abstract

Utilizing institutional ethnography and a critical analysis, this thesis explicates the textually-mediated process and ruling relations of performance measurement data collection in emergency homeless shelters. The thesis aimed to answer the query of whether the performance measurements collected by a set of programs, within a non-profit social service, adequately captured the full contribution of the work the staff did at their respective emergency shelter. Using literature, that has captured the experiences and insights of frontline workers who feel their work is inadequately captured, as a launch pad, this study spoke to informants who are directly involved in the creation of data collection tools and the reporting of the output and outcome performance measurements. How were these tools created? Who influences the development of the tools? Are some performance indicators (i.e. outputs, quality assurance, outcomes) measured more frequently or thoroughly than others? What are some of the barriers to measuring performance indicators? The study is based on five one-to-one semi-structured interviews, with informants working for a non-profit social service in Southern Ontario, and an analysis of the data collection tools used to compile performance measurements. The purpose of this research is to help social services, especially those that focus on addressing homelessness, improve the tools used to collect statistics on service so as to better articulate the breadth of work done by these services.