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Welcome to today's edition of ISM's Quick-tips Podcast Series. I' Barbara Beachley, a research
analyst and Associate Consultant with Independent School Management. We conduct surveys for
schools all over the country and today I'm going to talk to you about why they survey
and the benefits.
Why Survey?
So why do schools survey? Schools call us for a number of reasons. Increasingly we're
finding that accrediting agencies are requiring surveys. Some their own surveys, others allow
internal surveys or surveys conducted by third parties. Surveys are used for decision making
and strategic planning, improving student performance and satisfaction, identifying
strengths and weaknesses, strengthening management and leadership, testing the feasibility of
an initiative, or making sure that your parents are satisfied. By improving overall satisfaction
among all of your constituencies you increase internal marketing which is so important for
recruitment and rerecruitment. Probably the most important reason to survey is to confirm
assumptions and unveil myths which can be very costly. When schools make assumptions
and then make decisions based on those assumptions without confirming them with data mistakes
can be made. So all of this helps you to deliver your mission and ensure greater value propositions
that keep your school sustainable in the future.
Types of Surveys
The most common that schools will conduct internally may be one or two item poles through
Survey Monkey within a department or to check on an opinion having to do with the lunch
program let's say or athletics. When it comes to overall satisfaction surveys those tend
to be longer. For example the most common one that we conduct is the parent satisfaction
survey which looks at everything from academics, social emotional satisfaction, parent demographics,
and satisfaction with communication and leadership. We also have student and faculty culture surveys
which look at the connection between faculty culture which influences student performance
satisfaction and enthusiasm. And those are benchmarked research surveys that we have
data so that we can look at where schools fall on the national norm. Faculty staff satisfaction
surveys are also important—looking at all sorts of things from job satisfaction to maximizing
capacity to satisfaction with benefits. Board of trustee evaluation surveys are useful in
strategic planning and attrition surveys and applicat surveys are two of the most popular
surveys that we conduct. Schools are always looking to see why people are leaving or mission
appropriate students are leaving. And so attrition get at that. Declined applicant or applicants
that are applying to your school are accepted at your school and then decide not to enroll.
So looking at the reasons why they are choosing other schools and possible reasons that they
did not choose your school. Alumni surveys are great for looking at value added so some
of you may have a portrait of a graduate—you have on your website what a graduate from
your school looks like. So confirming that with Alumni surveys particularly is important
for marketing. Putting that in your school newsletter can be a fantastic way to communicate
what you are actually doing as opposed to what you say you are doing. Having it in the
word of the Alums is a great way to do that. Campaign feasibility is another popular survey
that we do looking at really can you manage the campaign that you're about to start. Campaigns
are expensive so it's important to make sure that they are feasible before you begin that
project. Program strength—just looking across your academics, comparing your departments,
comparing teacher, teacher care and concern. And we really look at the aspects that according
to our research are most important to independent school parent. And it's crucial that they
are in the surveys so that you are basing your questions on research. On a smaller level
in schools—internally—teachers often conduct classroom surveys so that they are conducting
their own research action research and looking at their own progress and the progress of
their students over time. And then finally standard research-based instruments that you
can look at your progress over national norms and compare them.
Survey Methods
So there are a number of questions to ask when you think about how you are going to
conduct your survey. First who is going to conduct the survey? Will it be internal—conducted
by the school—or will you hire a third party to do the survey? And there are pros and cons
to both depending on the kind of survey that you're conducting. Secondly, are you going
to conduct the survey once and then look at a cross sectional piece of time or will you
conduct the survey over a period of time and compare it for longitudinal data? Will you
use a standardized instrument so that you can use benchmarking on norms to see where
you stand versus other schools? Or, will you have a customized instrument that looks at
your specific programs and needs? And finally which medium will you use—phone, electronically,
or in-person interviews? We've found that we get the best data from electronic distribution.
We have higher response rates and we get more honest and complete feedback.
When is the Best Time to Survey?
So a lot of schools ask us when the best time to survey would be. It really depends on who
you are surveying but there are two rules of thumb for this. First you want to look
at the State of your participants who will be participating in the survey. So for example,
a faculty culture survey would not be ideal right before comments are due. You would want
to avoid times where they would be stressed or in other states of mind that wouldn't accurately
reflect their culture. Parent satisfaction, avoiding December or January, big Holidays,
Spring Break, or any time when the parents might be distracted or stressed because of
student stress—for example around exam times so we typically recommend the October, November,
February, and sometimes late Spring for parent satisfaction. Applicant surveys are typically
done between March and May because that's when applicants are letting schools know that
they will not be attending and that's the same for attrition. So doing attrition surveys
soon after you know that families are leaving would be the best time. The second rule of
thumb would be to, if you're going to conduct a survey over a period of time to do it the
same time every year. All of our data show that surveying the same group in October would
yield different results than in April let's say. So if you're conducting surveys over
a period of years, if you do it in April in the first year then you need to do it in April
in the second year so that you have reliable comparative data.
Thank you for joining me in this Podcast. For more information about visit isminc.com/elearning.
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