Cleveland District State High School

Survey Policy

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Table of Contents

Rationale 1

Procedure 1

Definitions 1

Survey Flowchart 2

Guidelines for developing Ethical and Effective Surveys 3

Front Page 3

Survey Structure 3

Pre-testing the Survey 4

Ethical Considerations 4

First Page Example 5

Permission Letter Example 6

Survey Audit Checklist 7

Rationale

Survey research involves collecting data from members of a representative sample in order to generalise results across a larger group. Survey research appears quite simple and is often considered an appropriate method of data collection for students. Effective surveys that collect valid data in an effective and ethical manner, however, are actually quite complex to develop. Students need considerable teacher support to create meaningful surveys and this needs to be taken into account when developing student tasks that require survey research. It should be noted that for the purposes of this Policy, interviews are considered a form of survey research and need to follow the same guidelines and ethical approval process.

This Policy provides guidelines for the effective and ethical development of surveys, defines “Low Risk” and “High Risk” surveys and outlines the ethical approval process for all surveys developed and/or conducted at Cleveland District State High School. Developing and administering ethical surveys helps to protect the welfare, rights and dignity of the research participants while protecting the integrity of the data collected, the rights of the researcher and the reputation of the school.

Procedure

·  Become familiar with the School Survey Policy.

·  Become familiar with the definition of “Low Risk” and “High Risk”.

·  Ensure that that the flowchart timelines and guidelines for ethical and effective surveys are considered when setting assessment tasks and due dates.

·  Note that high risk surveys need to be submitted to the Ethics Committee at least three weeks before the survey is due to be conducted.

·  Use the guidelines (Page 3) to ensure that students develop ethical and effective surveys with teacher guidance.

·  Follow the steps outlined in the Survey Flowchart (Page 2).

·  Never allow a student to administer a “High Risk” survey without approval of the Ethics Committee.

Definitions

Low Risk / High Risk
Survey and data analysis is deemed low risk when data is readily available from a reputable organisation, eg. Census and Australian Bureau of Statistics. / Survey and data analysis (internally and externally collected) is deemed high risk if the survey requires students to collect new data from participants

Survey Flowchart


Guidelines for Developing Ethical and Effective Surveys

Front Page

·  The front page of the survey should include – Statement of Purpose, Demographic Questions and Directions for completing the survey (see Front Page Example).

·  The Statement of Purpose should be fully developed before the survey is constructed. Every question should relate directly to the Statement of Purpose. The data collected from the survey should be included in the results and used to inform the discussion section of the research project.

·  Demographic questions are designed to collect information about the survey respondent. These questions are developed to facilitate the collection and interpretation of data. For example, if the survey relates to school subjects, it would be appropriate to ask the respondent their Year Level and subjects studied. For some projects it may also be relevant to compare the responses of males with the responses of females or the responses of particular ages of respondents.

·  Survey subjects should be carefully selected so that each relevant subgroup is properly represented (and identified through demographic questions). Selected respondents should have the desired information and be willing to contribute to the research. All surveys should be voluntary otherwise the data collected will be unreliable.

·  The directions will depend on the type of questions selected for inclusion in the survey. The type of questions chosen (open-ended or closed-option) will depend on the purpose of the survey, the research method chosen (qualitative or quantitative) and the data needed to address the research question posed.

Survey Structure

·  Typed and well set out – boxes under boxes with Likert Scale (5 point scale such as Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree) questions etc.

·  Brief and easy to follow with instructions on how to answer each type of question. For example, “Circle the response”.

·  Avoid terms that may not be known to the respondent and use vocabulary that is suitable to the respondents. Reliable data can only be collected if every respondent interprets the question in the same way.

·  Avoid open-ended questions unless they are necessary to answer the research question. Open-ended questions are difficult to collate and quantify especially for inexperienced researchers. Respondents are less likely to answer a survey with open-ended questions as they are very time consuming.

·  Closed-option questions (questions that have a list of possible responses) are easier to collate and quantify. When using closed-option questions, an “Other – please specify” response must be included.

·  Avoid questions that make assumptions such as “Have you stopped smoking?” when there is a simple “yes” or “no” response as this question assumes that you have previously smoked and leaves the non-smoker confused. A qualifying question is needed such as “Have you ever smoked?”

·  Avoid vague questions such as “Do you spend a lot of time training?” This question will be interpreted differently by every respondent depending on their definition of “a lot”. A better question would be “How many hours each week do you train?”

·  Once the questions are developed, they should be organised into a logical order.

Pre-testing the Survey

·  Once the survey is complete, it should be pre-tested. This involves administering the survey to a small number of people and asking them if any of the questions were ambiguous, repetitive or irrelevant.

·  Feedback from the pre-test should be used to modify the survey before it is administered to the final respondents.

Ethical Considerations

·  There are ethical considerations involved in all research studies regardless of the research question or the number of respondents.

·  No respondent should ever feel threatened or be harmed in any way (physically or psychologically) by a research study.

·  The nature of the question and the age of the respondent is particularly important when conducting research in a school setting.

·  If there is any indication that a question may be inappropriate in any way, it should be removed immediately. If the research question requires data that would be inappropriate to collect, the research question is inappropriate and needs to be changed or modified.

·  Surveys involving students in Years 7 to 10 require parental permission. This can be easily achieved by distributing surveys to students in Years 7 to 10 with a cover letter to parents (see Cover Letter example) that needs to be signed and returned with the survey. The survey and cover letter should be given to students in a sealed envelope. When surveys are returned, the cover letter should be immediately separated from the survey to protect the identity of the respondent.

·  Privacy of respondents must always be maintained.


First Page Example:

Statement of Purpose

The following survey has been designed by ______(under the supervision of ______), to investigate ______. The results of this survey will be used to ______.

Your participation is voluntary and you are under no obligation to complete this survey. All responses will be kept confidential.

Demographic Questions

Age (please circle):

0 – 15 16 - 30 31 – 45 46 – 60 61 – 75 Over 75

Gender (please circle):

Female Male

Directions

Indicate how much you agree or disagree with each statement by ticking the response that best fits your immediate reaction to each statement – Strongly Agree, Agree, Undecided, Disagree, Strongly Disagree.


Permission Letter Example

Date

Dear Parent/Carer

The following survey has been designed by ______(under the supervision of ______), to investigate ______. The results of this survey will be used to ______.

Your student has been selected to participate in the attached survey. Their participation is voluntary and they are under no obligation to complete the survey. The survey will take less than ten minutes to complete and all responses will be kept confidential.

If you give permission for your student to complete the survey, please sign this letter and ask your student to return this to ______when they return their survey. If you do not give permission for your student to participate in this survey, there is no requirement to return any documentation.

Please note that this permission letter will be immediately separated from the survey and the identity of the respondent will remain confidential.

------

I give permission for ______to complete the attached survey.

Name: ______

Signature: ______

Date: ______

Survey Audit Checklist

In accordance with the ethics process, please submit the following checklist with your submissions for high risk surveys to the ethics committee via email to

HOD: Subject: Year level:

Topic: Target participants:

Ensure the following items are attached to this checklist:

Required for ethics committee to review / Feedback from ethics committee
Assessment task sheet that includes the following information:
/ Sample size required – how many surveys are required?
/ Target audience (who will see the data and analysis, e.g. Whole class, teacher, panel)
/ Analysis of data – how will this be done and recorded?
/ Participants – who will be surveyed, when and how?
/ Scaffolding for survey, template etc., including school disclaimer
/ Semester planner/unit overview
/ Parent permission letter (for participants under 16)

Who are the teachers responsible for this task and data collection (for return of ethics advice)?

Approval advice:

/ Approval is granted for the survey to be conducted and managed by the teachers (and HOD where required)
/ Approval is granted for the survey to be conducted however this must be on an ‘opt in’ basis, and written permission is required by participants (signed by principal)
/ Approval is NOT granted for the survey to be conducted at this time. Please make changes recommended below and resubmit to ethics committee

If not approved, please consider the following and resubmit:

______

Paul Bancroft (Principal) Date

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