Schools seeking to tap the opinions of their constituents鈥攑arents, students, and community members鈥攎ay never have had it so easy, thanks to the proliferation of online survey tools that are being served up by companies or set up by school do-it-yourselfers.
Clickable surveys offered through school or district Web pages are easier to prepare and tabulate, and appear to get higher rates of response, than traditional paper surveys that are sent home in backpacks or mailed, say school administrators who have joined the trend.
Online surveys are providing feedback on such topics as the quality of administrative services, codes of student conduct, satisfaction with school programs and facilities, the incidence of bullying, and families鈥� plans for re-enrollment.
For example, the 62,000-student Greenville, S.C., school district posts customer-satisfaction surveys for every major administrative function on a Web page entitled 鈥淗ow Are We Doing?鈥�
See the accompanying column,
District spokesman Obie Lyles said the surveys address a 鈥渃ustomer service objective鈥� in the district鈥檚 education plan. 鈥淚t gives us a way to monitor how we鈥檙e doing and what we need to do differently or do better,鈥� he said.
Private schools are also conducting more online surveys, in large part because they 鈥渟ave the school time and allow [leaders] to get immediate feedback once their results are in,鈥� said Lauren Lipsick, an educational services manager who sets up online surveys for members of the Catholic Telemedia Network. The network is a consortium of some 150 Roman Catholic schools in California, predominantly in the San Francisco Bay area.
Survey Services
Ms. Lipsick uses , a Web site that hosts surveys for a wide range of companies and other organizations. She pays a reduced educational rate of $300 annually, which allows any school in the network to post surveys at the site.
Zoomerang, owned by MarketTools Inc., based in Mill Valley, Calif., also offers templates for surveys and provides automated tabulation of the results. A school can put a link to its survey on a school Web page or e-mail the link to a target group.
Ms. Lipsick receives the proposed questions from a teacher or administrator and turns the questions into survey items, using templates or previous surveys as a model. The formats include single- or multiple-choice queries, yes-or-no questions, and scales that let participants select a range of intensity, such as from 1 to 5.
After revisions of a draft survey and an online trial run, Ms. Lipsick launches the finished survey on Zoomerang.com, and the school e-mails a Web link to the people the school wishes to survey. Recipients click on the link to go directly to the survey.
A more high-powered鈥攁nd expensive鈥攕urvey option is provided by WebSurveyor Corp., based in Herndon, Va. WebSurveyor hosts surveys primarily for corporations and higher education institutions, according to Tom Lueker, the company鈥檚 chief marketing officer.
WebSurveyor charges $250 for a single survey or $1,500 for an annual subscription that allows numerous surveys, Mr. Lueker said. The annual cost to use the survey software to operate on a school district鈥檚 computer system is $5,000.
That kind of money buys features such as telephone help for new users on designing a questionnaire and analyzing results, the ability to limit participation to people who have user-identification passwords, and advanced capabilities to crunch data and even examine responses by individuals.
The 7,800-student Queen Anne鈥檚 County, Md., school district uses WebSurveyor twice a year for feedback from parents, said Robert Lothroum, the district鈥檚 supervisor of accountability and technology. 鈥淲e鈥檙e getting about a 30 percent return, compared to 5 or 6 percent on paper surveys sent home,鈥� he said.
Online Limitations
Experts point out, however, that online surveys have some important limitations. To begin with, they say, some families still do not have access to the Internet.
In addition, online surveys suffer from poor response rates, just like regular surveys, if they are not promoted effectively. To boost response, some schools hold drawings for a portable digital music player or other prize for respondents who complete the surveys.
Beyond the problem of poor response rates, online surveys can have the unintended effect of drawing in people who are not wanted in the survey pool. Many school Web sites offer surveys intended to gauge the views of parents or students on school policies, but anyone can click in and answer the questions.
To reduce that risk, some schools use password-protected surveys, 鈥渙r bury [the survey deep in a Web site] so no one鈥檚 going to stumble on it鈥� unless they鈥檝e been directed to it by school officials, Ms. Lipsick said.
But attempts to control survey participation can backfire, as in one California district, where community members have complained that they have been wrongly excluded from an online survey of parents and students posted on the district Web page.
The survey on the Web site of the 1,860-student Acton-Agua Dulce school district, a community northwest of Los Angeles, asks parents questions about their satisfaction with their local schools, then gets to the kicker: Do they think that the district needs a replacement for its aging high school?
Bernard Schwab, a self-titled watchdog in the community, complains that citizens other than parents also deserve to register their views in the survey.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a misuse of the survey,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hat they want to do, if 100 people want a high school, is say, 鈥楲et鈥檚 put another bond [before voters].鈥� It鈥檚 unacceptable, because all the residents have to pay for it.鈥�
Superintendent Linda Wagner, in an interview, said that voters have rejected three bond elections within the past three years to build a new school鈥攄efeats that she attributes to the preponderance of residents who do not have children in school.
She conceded that the survey should have been open to all. 鈥淲e probably should have had it in probably more of a community format,鈥� Ms. Wagner said.
