Step One:
Planning Your Survey Project
A. Begin with
the End in Mind -- Uses for the Survey Data
The most useful project is
undertaken with a particular purpose in mind. What information do you need to
support your local prevention efforts? How will having more information help
you? There are many ways in which prevention professionals use the results of
the ADAS, PPS and ATS. The following are the most common uses:
1. Working
Face-to-Face with Young People
Professionals who are coordinating or implementing prevention programs use the
information on a daily basis when working directly with youth. It is much easier
to talk effectively with students about drugs when you already know which drugs
the students in your school are using, and what their beliefs and attitudes
about drugs are.
2. Conducting
Needs-Assessments
Survey
results are used to complete formal needs-assessments. In some cases, the survey
results, combined with your working knowledge of the population and the
resources available, may provide enough data for this process. In other cases,
the survey will be one of a number of data-collection projects that contribute
to the needs-assessment. Surveying is a very efficient method of collecting
reliable information about your youth population’s prevention needs.
If you want more
information about how to do needs assessments, we have assembled a list of other
websites that offer information on this topic.
Click here to view this list.
3.
Evaluating Prevention Programs
The ADAS
and ATS have been used for years to evaluate prevention efforts. They provide
"outcome-based measures." In other words, if your goal is to reduce drug and
tobacco use by high-school students, you will measure use-rates, do your
prevention activities, and then measure again to see if there is any effect. The
ADAS and ATS also provide data about attitudes, so that you can measure whether
prevention efforts are changing young peoples’ perceptions about alcohol,
tobacco and other drugs. The PPS allows you to measure changes in the
presence/absence of risk and protective factors in students’ lives. It also
quantifies students’ experiences with violence. These surveys can be used for
"pre-post" testing or as a method to track trends over time. You should first
decide what your own questions are (for example "Does this prevention effort
affect Behavior A or Attitude X?") and then make sure that our surveys include
specific items that will reveal the answers to your questions. Because our
surveys are based on up-to-date scientific research in the prevention field,
most evaluators’ questions are addressed by the items on our questionnaires.
If you want more
information about how to do program evaluation, we have assembled a list of
other websites that offer information on this topic.
Click here to view this list.
4.
Educating Your Public
RMBSI’s
reports include materials to help you communicate with your community. Each
report includes an outline for giving public presentations, and overhead
transparencies that go with the scripts. These materials have been used for
presentations to students, parents, school staff, administrators, and
communities-at-large. We also provide press releases, which you can distribute
if you want media-coverage of your results. You can now order an additional
version of your report results in a PDF file format to add to your website.
5.
Writing Grant Proposals
Survey
results provide a large part of the necessary fact-base for preparing grant
proposals. You do not have to be a statistician to provide accurate statistics
in your appeals for program funding if you use the ADAS, PPS, and/or ATS.
B.
Decide Which of RMBSI’s Surveys to Use
To request
an informational packet with sample surveys, send an e-mail message (including
your name, title, organization, complete street address, city, state and zip
code) by clicking here.
Carefully
read the sample questionnaires that are in your informational packet, and decide
which of them will best inform your prevention efforts. Also, consider the
following guidelines:
If you are
looking for data on alcohol and other drugs, you will definitely want to use
either the Adolescent or Children’s version of the ADAS – or maybe both. The
Adolescent ADAS should be given to students in the 7th through 12th grade, and
the Children’s ADAS should be given to 4th and 5th graders. We strongly
recommend that you do not cross these boundaries, as both the surveys and the
data analysis have been developed based on developmental norms that apply to
either elementary or secondary students. We find that 6th graders are sometimes
located in grade schools and sometimes in middle schools, and their behavior may
resemble either 5th or 7th graders more closely. If you are surveying 6th
graders, therefore, you may select either the Adolescent or Children’s ADAS,
whichever you feel will be more appropriate for your needs.
If you
need information about youth violence and are interested in improving your
substance abuse prevention efforts, use The Prevention Planning Survey. It is
always paired with the Adolescent ADAS and is not available as a "stand-alone"
survey. In fact, it is only printed in booklets that combine both surveys. The
Prevention Planning Survey is most appropriate for use with students in 8th
grade and up. It may also be used with 6th and 7th graders who are taking the
Adolescent ADAS. However, it may be difficult for young students and/or students
with below-average reading speed to finish the full eight pages in a standard
class period. Unless you can schedule a longer block of time for the survey, you
should use the ADAS/PPS booklet only with groups of students who are
likely to complete the booklet in a 45-to-55 minute period.
The
American Tobacco Survey may be given to students in 4th grade up to 12th grade.
It is available either as a "stand alone" survey or as a booklet paired with the
Adolescent ADAS. If you wish to give the Adolescent ADAS and the PPS on one day,
you can schedule the ATS on a separate day by itself. Other schools may wish to
use the ADAS and ATS at the same time (in booklets). Most students can complete
the ADAS/ATS booklet in about 35- 45 minutes. If you want to give the ATS to
elementary school students you can schedule it separately from the Children’s
ADAS. The "stand-alone’ ATS requires 10-15 minutes for most students to
complete.
C. Decide Who
to Survey
1. Decide
Which Grades to Survey
RMBSI
offers surveys that are available for 4th to 12th graders. Which of these grades
you survey is your choice. The most important suggestion we can make is that you
collect data that will serve your purpose (or several purposes!). Choose grades
to survey because data on these grades will help you to plan or to improve your
prevention efforts and to measure your outcomes!
Consider
which students your prevention efforts are currently serving or are going to be
serving in the next year or two. If you are working in a single building site,
you may want to survey the youngest eligible grade as well as the oldest of the
grades at that site. If you are coordinating prevention and intervention
services for an entire K-12 school district, it’s probably desirable to survey
at least one grade in the upper elementary level, some middle school/junior high
grade(s) and some high school grade(s). This will help you answer questions
like:
"At what age and grade-level do our kids first begin to show an increase in
drug use?"
"At what grade-levels are there changes in our kids’ pattern of use?"
"At what grade level do we see the highest level of drug involvement?"
Since drug experimentation begins at a much earlier age than many adults
realize, we encourage you to survey at the youngest grade to which you have
access. Data at this level may help you to implement prevention efforts with
students who are young enough that the majority have not started using drugs.
If you
want to be able to compare local results with national survey results, you
should include 8th, 10th and/or 12th graders in your survey, because these are
the grades for which reliable national data is available from the University of
Michigan’s Monitoring the Future study (for more information about this study,
go to
www.monitoringthefutore.org ). We include their national data in every
report we prepare on our adolescent ADAS version.
2. Surveying
the Whole Grade vs. Sampling Procedures
Whenever
possible, we strongly recommend that you survey all of the
students in the selected grades who are present on the day of the survey. The
goal of surveying is to find out about certain behaviors and attitudes within
the community’s population of young people. To do this it is very important to
survey a group that accurately represents the whole youth population. The best,
most effective way to do this is also the simplest way, and that is to survey
all students in the selected grades. #9;
The other
approach would be to select a "sample" – a portion of the students who will
represent the total student population at that grade level. Sampling may help
you in keeping costs down because you survey fewer students. However, good
sampling procedures are rather complex, and if sampling is done improperly, it
leads to results that do not accurately describe the population. In the long
run, the cost savings will not be beneficial if the survey results do not
reflect the behavior and attitudes of the whole student group.
If you
must survey only a sampling of students, it is very important that the person or
team who selects the sample is experienced and knowledgeable about local
demographics, sampling procedures, and statistics in general. RMBSI’s staff can
provide some general guidance, but a local professional who handles evaluations
and research for the school district, or a faculty member in social sciences at
a near-by university will know the local population better. However, we
remind you again that the best, most effective, and easiest method of getting
accurate survey results is to survey all students in the selected grade level
who are present on the day of the survey.
3. Decide
Whether to Survey Special Needs Students
The
surveys offered by RMBSI should be given under conditions that protect student
anonymity. This means that no one should know or see how any student answers the
questions. Some special education students may be able to read, comprehend, and
fill in the answer "bubbles" on the survey independently, while others cannot.
Only those students who can complete the survey by themselves, under anonymous
conditions, should be asked to take the survey.
D. Additional
Decisions in Planning Your Order
You will need to order
your questionnaires and your reports at the same time.
1. How
Many Questionnaires Should You Order?
You should
order enough forms to survey all your enrolled students at the grade level(s)
you want to survey, unless you have decided to survey only a sampling of
students. Please note that we recommend surveying all students when possible
(see page 6). After you administer the survey, return all forms, both completed
and blank ones, to RMBSI. Part of your billing will be based on the number of
completed forms.
If you
survey your older students with the Adolescent ADAS and your younger grades with
the Children’s ADAS, be aware this necessitates separate Adolescent and
Children’s ADAS Reports.
2. How Many
Reports (and Which Reports) Should You Order?
Children’s
ADAS Reports are prepared from Children’s ADAS forms. Adolescent ADAS Reports
are prepared from Adolescent ADAS forms. Results from Children’s and Adolescent
forms are derived through separate analysis procedures and cannot be mixed
together.
If you are
surveying at only one school building, you probably need to order just one
report for each type of survey you use (i.e., Adolescent ADAS, and PPS).
However, if you are surveying at several school sites, you may want to order
separate reports for each site, and/or composite report(s) combining the data
from multiple sites. You should consider whether you want data by site, as a
composite, or both. Many districts have found that individual school reports
work best in increasing awareness and motivation to develop prevention programs.
In each
report, students’ responses will be presented in tables. The tables in
Adolescent ADAS Reports, Tobacco Reports and Prevention Planning Reports can
have up to four columns. Children’s ADAS Reports can have up to three columns.
We cannot exceed these column limitations.
Ordinarily, each column presents the responses of students in a single grade, as
in the example below where column 1 = 9th grade, column 2 = 10th grade, etc.
| |
9th
Graders
|
10th
Graders
|
11th
Graders
|
12th
Graders
|
|
Ever Tried Alcohol
|
67%
|
75%
|
79%
|
84%
|
However,
in the following circumstances we may need to modify the typical column layout:
* If you
have fewer than 50 students in each grade, we recommend showing the responses of
students from two or more grades in a single column, as in the example below:
| |
9-12th
Graders
|
|
Ever Tried Alcohol
|
77%
|
For a
variety of reasons, we find it’s advisable to have at least 50 students reported
in each column used. If you have a very small student population, please also
ask about the option of ordering only an Executive Summary Report without a
Detailed Report.
* If you
have more than 50 students in each grade, and you are surveying more than four
grades with the Adolescent Form, we recommend ordering at least two reports
(even if all the students are at one school site). This way you will have the
responses of each grade level presented separately. Or you may opt to condense
the grades into the four column format in a single report (i.e., column 1 = 6th
& 7th grades combined, column 2 = 8th & 9th grades combined, etc.). This
however, will obscure information regarding the differences in drug usage from
one grade to the next.
3. Should You
Order Multi-year Comparison Reports?
If you
have used the ADAS before, we have your previous years’ data stored in our
computer files. If your procedures meet certain criteria, you may choose to
order a Multi-year Comparison Report in addition to your current year’s Detailed
ADAS Report.
A
Multi-year Comparison Report pulls the data from the Executive Summary portion
of your report, and compares the students surveyed in each grade level to
students who were surveyed in that grade previously.
A
Multi-year Comparison Report has a standard format, and can be created for a
standard fee if you are completely consistent in your surveying procedures.
Consistency means that you survey the same grades in the same schools each year
that you survey, and your reports for each of those years are ordered with
exactly the same column layouts. Also the same school site or sites must be
included in the reporting that is compared across time. It is not necessary to
survey in consecutive years – multi-year comparisons can be created, for
example, using data from the three school-years 1995-1996, 1998-1999 and
2001-2002.
If you do
not survey the same grades or the same school sites, or you do not order reports
with the same column formatting each year, the processing of a Multi-year
Comparison report will require special handling by our staff. In such cases, the
standard charge for such a report will not apply. If your procedures have not
been consistent, but you wish to receive a Multi-year Comparison Report, please
ask for a customized price quote.
It should
be noted that a Multi-year Comparison does not reproduce the entire Detailed
Report format, but rather offers a summary of tables showing the changing
patterns of drug use. If you need to see particular details analyzed in a format
that compares two or more years, and the information you want to see isn’t part
of our standard Multi-year Comparison Report, we probably can run a customized
analysis for you. Please call for a customized price quote.
4. Do You
Need Special Analyses?
If you
want to receive any data analyses that are not described in these materials,
please call us to discuss your requests. We are often able to handle special
orders.
E. Make
Arrangements within the School System
1. Obtain
Necessary Board or Administration Approval
Before
placing your survey order, you may need to get approval of the project from the
administrators of the school system and/or the school building sites. It may
take some time to present the information, allow people to digest that
information, and then to wait for the concerned parties to meet, discuss, and
make decisions. In many school districts this process takes between two and six
months, so it is wise to plan ahead. This step is especially important if you
are part of a community organization that is outside of the school system.
2.
Schedule the Survey Date or Dates
You will
need to discuss scheduling with the principal of each school building where the
survey will be given. There is no universally "best" month or time of day to
give the ADAS, PPS or ATS, but you will want to consider the following factors:
(a)
Allow Enough Time for the Students to Answer All the Questions
Most students need the following amount of time to complete the surveys:
o Adolescent ADAS alone 20-30 minutes
o Children's ADAS alone 20-30 minutes
o The American Tobacco Survey alone 10-15 minutes
o Adolescent ADAS with The American Tobacco Survey 30-45 minutes
o Adolescent ADAS with the Prevention Planning Survey 45-55 minutes
(b) Minimize Interference with Academic
Schedules
Teachers who resent the
interruption of their classroom time are less likely to oversee the survey
administration with a positive attitude.
(c) Try For High-Attendance Days
It is important to
choose a day when high-to-average attendance is likely. You should not survey
students who are absent on the survey-date later on, as we have found that this
causes very serious problems. Absentees should simply not participate in the
survey. It is, therefore, essential that you pick a date for each school
building when as many students are present as possible. Avoid dates when there
are groups of students away for field trips, sports events, etc. If there is a
flu epidemic or major storm that keeps 25% or more of your students home when
you have planned to survey, it may be best to reschedule rather than to proceed.
(d) Consider the Time of Year
Recognize that the date
when you give the survey will affect the results to some degree. We would advise
you to view the survey results as a snapshot of the substance use rates at a
given time, and interpret them in light of these general realities. For example,
generally speaking, the older the students are, the higher the population’s
level of drug-use will be. This means that, as a group, seventh graders surveyed
in the spring will usually have tried more drugs than seventh graders surveyed
in the fall, but will have slightly lower use rates than eighth graders surveyed
in the fall. Also, if you survey within 30 days after a major holiday or
festival in your community, you may see a higher number of students reporting
alcohol and other drug use in the last 30 days. Nevertheless, the results will
be perfectly valid. They will be a correct representation of use among students
at the time the survey is taken. You can therefore survey at any time in the
school year, but once you establish a time, you should try to survey at the same
time of year in the future so that the results will be most truly comparable.
And, again, interpret your results taking into account the events that take
place at that time of year, which may affect drinking and drug use.
(e) Choose A Time of Day or A Specific
Course for Your Survey Time
Each student in the
grade level(s) selected should be surveyed once and only once, so how classes
are scheduled may determine what time of day the survey is given. Ideally, it is
best to survey every student in the building who is in the selected grade(s) at
the very same time – that is, during the same class period. In the real world
this ideal is frequently not possible. A very good next-best plan is to survey
every eligible student in the building on the same day, but during different
class periods. The least desirable method would be to survey in a building on
two or more separate days. This is occasionally necessary, especially in schools
with "block scheduling." It is preferable, if this must be done, to at least try
to survey students who are likely to interact with one another all on one day.
Some
schools select a course attended by every student in that grade, such as a
health class or English class, as the place where the survey is administered.
Other schools simply select a given time, and every teacher oversees the survey
in their room at that time. The advantage of this is that all students are given
the survey at once, and there is no opportunity for hallway discussions about
the survey to affect the way students approach the survey later in the day. The
disadvantage is that it may interfere with more teachers’ teaching schedules,
and the administration process may be more unevenly handled. However, this is
not necessarily a problem. Meeting with the teachers in advance to explain the
reasons for the survey and to go over the administration procedures can help to
make this system work effectively.
(f) Consider When Students Will Take the Survey Most Seriously
If you know that students are more focused at certain times of year, days
of the week, or times of day, and more rowdy at other times, take advantage of
that knowledge. Select an administration date and time when you think students
are more likely to take the survey seriously and to answer the questions
honestly. The first day of school is generally not a good time, nor is the day
after a major late-night high school event like Senior Prom or the Homecoming
game. All in all, however, this is a common-sense issue. We can’t give you
"expert" advice, because these factors vary from one group of students to
another, and your professional knowledge of the kids involved will be
most useful.
3. Make
Financial Arrangements
(a) Worksheet to Calculate the Cost of Your Proposed Survey Project
The cost of the survey project will be determined by the number and type
of questionnaires you use, and by the number and type of reports you ask RMBSI
to prepare. Click here to complete
a worksheet that will tell you how much your tentative order will cost
(Note: this preliminary worksheet does not commit you to placing any order at
all.)
We do not
charge for shipping unless you request a special "Rush" delivery, in which case
we will charge you. Under normal circumstances, we issue invoices upon
completion of the entire project. Invoices are due 30 days from date of issue.
(b) Obtain a Purchase Order
In most school
districts, municipalities and universities, Purchase Orders are used to set
aside the funds that will be needed for a project. Sending a P.O. is not the
same thing as sending a check – the P.O. simply guarantees that funds will be
available to make payment when the time comes. If possible we prefer to receive
a Purchase Order before we ship your surveys to you, but payment is not expected
until our work has been done. In some school systems the business office will
not issue a P.O. until the final invoice reaches them. In this case, we will
accept your order and ask that you sign a statement verifying that payment will
be made according to our contract terms. We will invoice you when we complete
the reports on your survey results.
(c) Paying in Advance
In situations where
grant funds are used to pay for the survey project, you may have a deadline
requiring you to use your funding by a specific date. If so, you may send
pre-payments to RMBSI when you place your order, or during the course of the
project. We will provide you with an estimated amount to pre-pay, and when the
project is finished and the final invoice is calculated, we will either refund
any over-payment or bill you for the remaining balance due.
Step Two:
Placing Your Order with RMBSI, Inc.
A.
Call RMBSI at 1-800-447-6354 to place your order by telephone.
We will talk you through your order and decision-making process. You will not
need to fill out any order form if you order by phone.
OR
B. Print out this Order Form
(Click
here for a pdf document you can print.)
Core Measures customers please call us. The ADAS Core Measures Short Form
is not yet included on the order forms.
(1) Fax the Order Form and your Purchase Order to (970)221-0595
(2) Mail the Order Form and your Purchase Order to:
RMBSI, Inc
305 West Magnolia Street, #291
Fort Collins, CO 80521
Step Three:
Receiving Your Surveys
A. Shipment
Methods and Time in Transit
When we
receive your order, we usually can ship your surveys by the following day.
Incomplete orders, orders with special shipping instructions, and orders
involving more than 5000 surveys may require additional preparation time.
Shipment will be made via UPS Ground Service unless you specify that you need a
rushed delivery. Transit times for ground service will vary depending on your
location relative to Colorado. UPS will deliver most "Ground" packages in the
continental U.S. one to six working days after they pick up the package(s).
To check the exact transit
time from our location to yours, you can
click here to go to the UPS website.
B. Check
Your Materials
When you
receive the shipment of surveys, you will need to open the boxes right away and
check that you have received the correct surveys and a sufficient number of
surveys. You also will receive instruction sheets, checklists, and an Order
Agreement.
Please go
through the Order Agreement carefully, fill in the requested information, and
sign the last page. It must be returned to RMBSI with the completed surveys.
There will
be two pages of instructions for the coordinator(s) of the project, one page for
the teachers who monitor the survey in the classroom, and one page that is to be
read out loud to the students. The coordinator will need to make photocopies of
the Survey Administration Instructions and the Instructions to
Students. Each teacher who monitors the survey administration will need a
copy of these two sheets. You also need to prepare checklists to track who has
and hasn’t returned the surveys after the students take the survey. We provide
these checklist forms for you to use.
C. Distribute
Surveys and Instructions to Staff Members
We
recommend that you schedule a meeting in each school building to go over the
survey project with the staff members involved. At this meeting you can
distribute the instruction sheets they will need. You may also distribute the
surveys at this meeting. You also will need to give each classroom one or two
large envelopes (approximately 10" x 12"). The envelopes should be labeled with
the grade level(s) surveyed, the school-building name, the school district name,
and the name of the city/town and state. Students will place their surveys in
these envelopes when they are finished.
Step Four:
Parental Notification and Consent
Prior to giving the survey, it is
important to notify parents about the survey project. A few parents may not want
to have their children take the survey. This is a right that needs to be
respected. Legally, parents also have the right to review the questions that
will be asked before the survey is given to their children. You should have a
blank copy of each survey you will use available for parents to examine upon
request.
There are two common methods for
notifying parents about the survey and giving them the chance to keep their
children from participating. These are referred to as "active consent" and
"implied consent" methods. Active consent means that all parents must sign a
form giving permission for their child to take the survey. If a parent does not
return a signed form to the school, then that parent’s child cannot take the
survey. By contrast, an implied consent procedure means that only parents who
object to the survey sign the form and return it. The form says "Please do not
give the survey to my child(ren)." Parents who allow their children to
participate do not have to sign the form. By not returning the
"permission-denial" form, parents imply that they give their permission.
Depending on the funding being
used, and the methods used in giving the survey, certain laws may require a
particular procedure for getting parental consent. For a comprehensive discussion on "Parental Consent Procedures for Surveying in
Schools" click here
We recommend using an "implied
consent" procedure whenever possible, because it is easier, less expensive, and
generally allows you to survey a more representative portion of your student
population. Unless teachers call and remind the parents several times, usually a
great number of parents will not get around to returning "active consent"
permission forms. However, recently we have been encouraged to see that a few of
our clients have organized their active consent process so well that they have
received responses from 95% to 97% of parents!
Researchers have done follow-up
studies and learned that for most parents, failure to return the consent forms
is not due to parents’ objections to the survey, but just because their lives
are busy. On the other hand, parents who really do not want their children to
participate usually feel strongly enough about it to take the time to return a
form saying "No, don’t give the survey to my child." The clients who have
successfully obtained responses from 95% to 97% of parents had between 0% and
.3% of all parents saying no, which again confirms the idea that most parents
who will respond at all will respond affirmatively.
RMBSI will provide support and
guidance for either procedure you use in your community. Sample letters for each
procedure are available when you place your order. When you order, let us know
what method you’ll be using so that we can send appropriate checklists and
suggestions for a successful project.
Step Five: Administering
the Surveys
Teachers who are
administering the surveys should follow the instructions that are provided.
The Instructions to Students should be read aloud in each classroom.
They should be read aloud exactly as written, to ensure that students in all
classrooms are given the same information.
Teachers should allow
plenty of time for students to complete the survey. Cutting this process short
will cause the worst of problems. We recommend allowing a full class period,
but teachers should have a quiet activity ready for students to work on at their
desks if they finish before others. Most students need the following amount
of time to complete the forms:
o Adolescent ADAS alone 20-30 minutes
o Children's ADAS alone 20-30 minutes
o The American Tobacco Survey alone 10-15 minutes
o Adolescent ADAS with The American Tobacco Survey 30-45 minutes
o Adolescent ADAS with the Prevention Planning Survey 45-55 minutes
Step Six: Returning
the Surveys to RMBSI, Inc.
After students fill
out the surveys, they should place them in the 10"x 12" envelope with
the other students' completed forms. Immediately after each class finishes,
the envelopes with the surveys should be returned to the survey coordinator.
Please make sure that each envelope is labeled with the grade level surveyed,
the name of the school building, school district, city, and state. Unused surveys
must be returned too. The coordinator will use checklists to make sure every
classroom returns its surveys.
No one should read
the completed surveys. Doing so would violate the anonymity that is promised
to all students who participate.
The coordinator will
simply place the labeled, sealed envelopes in a box (or boxes) to ship to RMBSI
as soon as all surveys are collected. No other handling of the surveys should
occur. After the surveys leave the students’ hands, the next person to see the
completed surveys should be a member of RMBSI’s staff.
The coordinator should
be sure to include RMBSI’s Order Agreement in the box with the surveys. Before
sending it, make sure that you have filled in any missing information and signed
it. The information requested in the Order Agreement will allow us to begin
processing the surveys.
Step Seven: Reviewing
Your Survey Results
You can expect to
receive your reports approximately 30 to 45 days after the date you ship the
surveys to RMBSI. This allows about one week for shipping in each direction,
and about 30 days for RMBSI to process your surveys and prepare the reports.
Because of the nature of our work, we cannot guarantee precise turn-around times.
However, in the 2000-2001 school year, we shipped all but one order in 30 days
or less, with 96% of the orders processed going out early.
It’s important to
familiarize yourself with the results thoroughly before you begin using them.
We recommend that you make a list of all the people who should also be given
copies of the reports, and be sure to distribute copies to those people soon
after you receive them. RMBSI will treat your data confidentially. We never
release your data to any third party unless you ask us to in writing. Sharing
the results of your survey will be up to you.
The reports are generally
self-explanatory, but if you have any questions as you read, please feel free
to call us or send us e-mail. We will be happy to help you interpret anything
that needs clarification.
As mentioned earlier,
there are many valuable ways to use your survey results. Click here to return
to a listing of Uses for the Survey Data.
Step Eight: Repeating
the Survey Periodically
Survey results will
be most meaningful and useful when they are up-to-date. We recommend surveying
on a regular schedule. Some schools survey every school year, but many others
opt for every other year, or even every third year. We do not advise going more
than three years between data collection efforts.
Adding Multi-year
Comparison Reports to your order after the second survey-year will allow you
to track changes in key data items across time. Up to five years of data collection
can be displayed in a Multi-year Comparison.