Survey Service

Information for Schools

Background

Based on 6 years of rigorous research, the Friendly Schools & Families Program offers schools with a bullying reduction program that is evidence-based. The program recommends that in order to effectively develop a plan of action it is important for schools to know the nature, extent and consequences of bullying specifically within their own school community. Research suggests that asking students and other members of the school community (staff and parents) to respond to an anonymous survey is the best way to collect accurate information about the bullying experiences of students.

About the Service

The Friendly Schools & Families Survey Service can help schools to survey students, staff and parents to assess bullying in your school. The Child Health Promotion Research Unit (CHPRU) at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia has developed a standardised survey for each of these three groups where the responses collected are analysed and a detailed report of the findings prepared for schools.

This document provides details about the key components of the service. For clarification or further information please contact Barbara Smith at ACER on (03) 9277 5423.

Survey preparation

We have standard student, staff and parent surveys that collect information about:

Students	Parents	Staff
Bullying behaviour, type and frequency	Parent attitudes towards bullying and the school’s responses	Staff knowledge and attitudes towards bullying
Reporting bullying	Parent perception of type and frequency of bullying involving their child/children (either bullying or being bullied)	Staff perceptions of school’s response to bullying
Bystander responses and attitudes	Bullying information received and available from school	Provision of information about bullying
Bullying prevention education	Communication with child/children about bullying	Type and frequency of bullying behaviour reported to staff
Bullying and absenteeism	Contact with school staff about bullying
Attitudes to staff response to bullying

These surveys can be modified to ensure your school’s requirements are met. For example:

Your school’s logo and Principal’s name added to the front cover of the surveys
Special features of your school reflected in the questions. Incorporating information gained from your completed fax-back form and discussions via telephone and e-mail, for example, is your school an all girl or all boy school? or do you have residential students as well as day students?

ACER can arrange for the printing of surveys and/or parent letters for an additional fee. Alternatively, the surveys and letters can be provided to you in hard copy, or electronically, should you wish to make your own printing arrangements.

Assistance can also be provided with the development of a parent letter and consent form to be sent prior to conducting the student data collection. (A draft letter is included with this information.)

Parent consent

Schools are advised it is their responsibility to obtain parent consent for this survey. You may wish to use the draft ‘letter to parents’ which provides information about the Friendly Schools & Families Survey Service and a response slip for those parents who do not want their child/children to participate.

Data Collection

Schools will be responsible for having the surveys completed by students, parents and staff (as required) and sending these completed surveys to the ACER.

Students – surveys should be administered to students by teachers using the standard survey administration protocol provided by the ACER.
Parents – surveys should be sent home for parents to complete with a return envelope which can be sealed and returned to the school. Alternatively a reply paid envelope to the school or ACER can be arranged.
Staff – surveys should be given such that staff can complete them in private. Staff should seal their completed surveys in an envelope and return them to the school’s Friendly Schools & Families Coordinator.
All surveys, student, parent and staff, should be sent unopened together with a Summary Sheet to the ACER.

What happens once completed surveys are sent to ACER?

Data entry

Survey responses are entered in a computer statistical analysis program by trained data entry staff.

Data cleaning and analysis

Following data cleaning, descriptive statistics and data analyses that are required for the school report are conducted.

Report writing

The report will incorporate tables and graphs as well as descriptions of the results of the statistical analyses. This report will detail results for all questions asked in each of the student, parent and staff surveys.

We would like to keep the electronic data records from your schools’ survey in our database. This will enable us to compare information collected in this survey to that collected in the future should you wish to conduct another survey. You may find this is a useful method of assessing any changes in attitudes and levels of bullying at your school. To do this we will need to identify your school (ID number only) in the data set, however no individual student, parent or staff names will be recorded. These data will also help ACER to work with the CHPRU advocate for more widespread development and use of programs addressing bullying issues in schools.

What does your school receive at the end of this survey process?

Report. Your school will be presented with a detailed report describing the results of the survey including, where appropriate, comparisons to Australian norms and suggestions for follow-up support. Results will be presented clearly using graphs and tables along with descriptions of each for your school community.
Completed survey forms. The surveys belong to your school and it is the school’s responsibility to ensure these are kept locked in a secure location or destroyed, in accordance with Education Department guidelines. While survey forms will not be marked with the name of the person who completed the form, schools are reminded questions have been answered with the understanding that responses would remain confidential.

Standard Costs*

The following provides an indication of costs for this service and are based on use of a standard survey. Costs may vary for each school and a detailed quotation will be provided to your school upon request.

For example the cost* per person (student, parent, staff) surveyed is $5 each for 500 people or $10 each for 250 people. This includes data entry, data cleaning, data analyses and preparation of the report.
(*this does not include any printing costs)

Please complete the quotation request form and fax to +61 3 9277 5499, Attention: Barbara Smith if you would like us to provide a quote for this service.