We often think we know what our parents and community think—and sometimes we’re wrong. The only way to find out how people really feel is to ask the right questions. If we don’t know what people currently believe, we can’t possibly improve communication, services, or perceptions.
The next time you need to implement a change, add programs or services, or just find out what parents, students, or the community thinks about the school already, consider putting a survey on your school website or sending it through your school’s email lists. Even though a small percentage may turn them in, you’ll have a better understanding of the thoughts and perceptions that are out there.
Creating effective surveys
Here are some tips for developing effective surveys:
- Keep your survey short. People are less likely to complete long surveys thoughtfully. Select only the essential questions that will get you the information you need.
- Write questions that will elicit specific answers, not just generic responses. Try to avoid yes-or-no questions, and leave plenty of space for written answers. When you do have multiple choice questions, include “other” with a place for them to expand on their answer.
- To encourage responses, offer prizes or incentives. For example, send students home with a slip with the URL (web address) to the online survey, and ask parents to sign the slip when they complete the survey. The first class with the highest number of surveys gets a prize. Or you could offer a prize for people who participate—each person who completes the survey gets entered into a raffle to win a gift card.
- For parents who may not have access to a computer, let them know there will be a computer available in the office (or classroom) to take the online survey. Or, send home a hard copy of the survey if this is applicable (but response rates are lower on surveys that are sent home than those offered online).
Survey topic ideas
You will determine what audience you are targeting, of course, as you will create different survey questions for each audience. So, you’ll begin by selecting the topics you feel you need to understand from your target audience’s perspective. Some ideas you might consider include the following:
- Parents: preferred methods of communication; topics to be communicated; social media platforms they use; questions regarding their involvement with their children; questions regarding the school climate fit for their child; preschool parent needs, high school parent needs, etc.
- Students: feelings about the school, teachers, administrators; do they feel supported and respected; have they witnessed bullying or been bullied at school; areas for improvement; course evaluations; what activities or classes would they like to have available, etc.
- Staff: how supportive is the administration; does the school give too much/too little/about right attention to standardized tests; do teachers collaborate well with each other; how safe do they feel teaching at this school; etc.
Distribution and analysis
When you’re ready to send out your first survey, there is one more important step. You need to do a bit of pre-survey communication. If you alert your target audience that you will be conducting a survey, you can significantly boost participation. This communication can be a pre-survey postcard, an email, a notice on the website, or a phone call, depending on the type of survey you are using.
- Explain the purpose of the survey.
- Let your audience know how important their participation is to the school.
- Let them know when to expect it and when it needs to be completed.
- Tell your audience that you will let them know the results and how your school plans to use the information gathered by the survey.
You can either distribute a hard copy of the survey (realize, though, you’ll have to have someone gather the data for results) or use a survey program like SurveyMonkey or G
Once your results are in, the next step is to analyze the results. If you used a survey program like SurveyMonkey, the tabulation is a snap; the program will do it for you. If your survey was not online, you will need to tabulate the number of responses to each choice for each question and determine the percentage for each answer. We highly recommend using an online service; many are free for schools. It can improve your accuracy and eliminate the many hours of tabulation required for even a simple survey (especially one with open-ended questions).
Survey follow-up
Next, you’ll tabulate your survey and let your respondents know how their participation and input will be used. This will also help ensure greater participation with your next survey. It doesn’t need to be complex. In fact, depending on your audience, it probably should not be a bunch of graphs and charts, but rather, a personalized story relating what you learned from their input. If you used an online survey program, you can provide a link to the more technical results as well.
- Review your survey results. Where are the strongest and weakest areas? Put them into categories.
- Based on the results, in what areas can you implement changes that will make the most positive impact? Is there a problem you can address right away? Is there a misunderstanding you can clarify? List each item in the appropriate category, and then brainstorm some possible solutions.
- Create a summary (possibly by category) of the survey results, and write a story around those results. For example, let’s say your survey was about improving communication through the website and social media. Your story might start with why you want to make sure parents are getting the information they want in the way they want to receive it.
- Next, if you discovered that many of your parents don’t use the website very often (hopefully your survey also explains why parents aren’t turning to your website), then your story/article will tell them how you are planning to address their needs. Maybe you are integrating social media to push news to them and will link information directly to the website. Then you’ll include the link to join the fun.