School Planning Council Survey Case Study

A non-profit education organization contracted through a prime consultant to our company to conduct a survey of over 850 school planning councils within a province in Canada. The questionnaire contained over 130 questions, and was distributed to a target respondent group comprised of parents, students, teachers and school principals who were members of individual school planning councils.

Study Parameters

Study Population:

All 60 school districts were sent a letter inviting them to participate. Of those, 41 agreed to participate in the survey project, representing 731 elementary schools and 145 secondary schools. The total number of potential respondents was 4525. (This portion of the project was done by the prime contractor.)

Invitation Distribution:

Because e-mail addresses of the respondent group were not available, we were unable to send e-mail invitations. The method of invitation chosen was to send each respondent a customized paper invitation distributed through the school district mailing system. We were contracted to carry out that portion of the project.

Accordingly, We created a database of 4525 records, each with a unique username and password (generated by EZSurvey). That database was used as the source database for a Word mailmerge that resulted in the same number of printed invitations. Using data supplied by the Ministry of Education, we created an "invitation package" for each school, comprised of 5 or 6 invitations (5 for elementary schools, 6 for secondary schools), a letter of introduction to the principal, and a hard copy of the survey (in case some respondents wanted to fill out a paper survey). Those packages were then collated by school district, packaged with a cover letter to each superintendent, and sent to the district offices of those districts that agreed to participate for distribution to the schools.

Data Collection:

Electronic:
The questionnaire was composed by the client and the prime consultant and sent to us to create the electronic form. The form was created in EZSurvey, and contained 136 questions including write-in text, weighted score and single choice types. The electronic form comprised 20 pages. The survey was hosted at www.survey-hosting.com.

The online database was populated with the usernames and passwords so that respondents could access the survey (only once) and triflers could not access the form to sabotage the project.

Paper:
Respondents were given the opportunity to complete a paper survey rather than an electronic survey. Those were obtained from the school principal who received a copy of the survey in the invitation package which he/she duplicated for the respondent.

The survey was published to the web on the agreed-upon date, and was live for approximately five weekds. Respondents began to complete the survey virtually immediately. The respondents were required to type both their username and password into the appropriate boxes on the log-in page, and complete the survey. The average time taken to complete the survey was 17 minutes.

Completed paper questionnaires were mailed to the prime consultant, and passed to us for keyboard data entry.

Comments on process:

Invitation Distribution:
Only one school out of 876 participating reported that it did not receive the survey materials. Project records show that a package was created for that school, and sent to the school district office.

Data collection:
Only 2 tech support incidents were required: one respondent was using an out-of-date browser, and therefore could not access the survey; and one respondent pasted the URL in the Search box of the browser rather than the Address box. Other than those two calls, there were no support required.

Results:
Of the 4525 invited to complete the survey, 1121 responded (70 using the paper form), for a completion rate of 24.77%. The figure was much higher than the prime consultant anticipated in light of the necessary method of distriubtion of the invitations.

Project Summary:
This invitation distribtution phase of this project required a high degree of organization and attention to detail in order to successfully create and distribute over 4500 invitations using a 'three level" (post office to school district office to school) distribution system. The methodology worked virtually perfectly. The data collection process was flawless, with only two (relatively innocuous) tech support requests.

References available upon request.