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INTRODUCTION TO SURVEYS: What is a Survey?
Schools and districts around the country use many different approaches to conducting surveys. In this tool drawer, we use a broad definition of the term survey to capture the rich variety we have found in our research. All of the surveys we studied have two critical attributes:
- The surveys ask questions.
- Through those questions,the surveys elicit the nature and the strength of the opinions or perceptions of the respondents.
Uses of surveys
Schools and school districts may use a survey alone for some purposes, such as assessing how the community views the school’s programs. More frequently, schools use surveys as part of a larger evaluation design. For example, attitudinal data might be used to track changes in the school’s program or to explain student outcomes.
> Tip 1: Should you use someone else's survey or create your own?
Types of surveys
The written questionnaire is the most common survey approach. Oral interviews are also used quite frequently. This discussion of surveys will include descriptions of both, and also of less traditional questioning approaches such as focus groups and student writing and drawing.
Increasing the efficiency of instruments through technology
Recent developments in technology make it possible to refine traditional survey methods for greater efficiency. One of the difficulties inherent in questionnaires is their dependence on the respondents to return them. One company, Voice Poll Communications of Everett, Washington, has developed an approach that allows schools to use touch-tone technology to administer telephone surveys. Districts can use surveys created by Voice Poll, or design their own. Districts that have used this technology see it as a useful part of a communications strategy.
The Internet also offers survey resources. Schools can use the results of national surveys, often posted on the World Wide Web, as baseline data against which to compare the results of the same survey administered to a local audience. These surveys can also provide sample questions to use locally.
The Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll, available at www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0109gal.htm#top
can show how your community's results compare to a national sample in perception of school safety, school operation, parental control, and other issues.
The Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina maintains a database of public opinion poll questions at http://www2.irss.unc.edu/data_archive/pollsearch.html.
Nontraditional survey methods
Since student learning is at the center of the work of schools, students' perceptions are essential to any school-improvement process. However, the opinions of students are often surprisingly unheard.
Students' ages and development vary widely, as do their comfort levels and learning styles. Often "homegrown" rather than more formal, traditional strategies are most effective in capturing student voices.
The print publication Tools for Accountability: Surveys includes descriptions of several of these nontraditional tools. See also the Web site of the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Education Policy at Boston College (under Organizations in Resources) for information on using student drawings for assessment.
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