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Guidelines

A research request that meets the following criteria may be considered for approval:

  • The Request for Research submission process is complete.
  • The following information is required from all research proposals:
    • Project Title
    • Researcher/Primary Investigator
    • Research question (s)
    • Background/Study Rationale/Literature Review
    • Methodology
    • Benefit of study to participants and to School District
    • Burden on study participants and on School District
    • Timetable to conduct study or data collection activities
    • Compliance with federal regulations (FERPA-Family Education Rights Privacy Act, HIPAA-Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, PPRA-Pupil Rights Amendment)
    • Plan of action to disseminate findings to district
    • Reference Page
    • Additionally, the researcher must submit the following documents: copies of consent and assent forms, research protocols, and copies of instruments.
    • The project's design, use of instruments, and methodology should be clearly outlined and provided, and a final copy of all instruments that will be used and their source must be submitted 
  • The data collected meets the assumptions of the data analysis. The data analyses test the hypotheses and will lead to interpretable results.
  • The study must not violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).
  • The study makes provisions for protecting the confidentiality of personal data concerning students, employees, and the school district.
  • The study is not offensive to the values and standards of NEISD and the community, and does not inquire (in an obtrusive manner) into religion, gender, home, or family life. Any research involving controversial, inappropriate, or contentious topics will not be considered. This can include, but is not limited to:
    • Violence in schools
    • Bullying
    • Childhood obesity
    • Case studies on product sponsorships
    • Sex education or other sex-related research topics
    • Drugs, tobacco, and alcohol
    • Any topics regarding effectiveness of principal leadership in schools
  • Any study involving students requires notification to the parent and written consent of the parent or guardian prior to the implementation of the project.
  • Any study involving access to employee records must be voluntary and requires written consent of the employee.
  • Active consent forms are required for any survey that falls under The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).
  • The study makes minimal interruptions to the regular school program and makes no undue demands upon the time of students, teachers, administrators, or other district personnel.
  • The study involves no expense to NEISD.
  • The study does not involve research during the first and/or last month of school as determined by the adopted NEISD calendar.
  • The study or participation in the study is not scheduled during district-wide testing periods for state assessment or district assessments. 
  • Even if approval to conduct research is granted by the District, participation by individual campuses is left to the discretion of the campus principal.  Approval letters from the district are simply an approval to approach a campus.
  • The district reserves the right to request final results, findings, or reports of the approved research study.
  • The district reserves the right to terminate an approved research request at any time.

 

 

 

Survey Instrument Guidelines:

 

What is the purpose of a survey?

A survey is an observational study that gathers data by asking questions(questionnaire) to the respondent (Beins, 2018) in a method that does not affect them.

Scientific survey instruments would be objective, replicable, verifiable, not affected by personal bias, well defined, and specific (Beins (2018), Research Method, A Tool for Life).

The goal of scientific evaluation is to explain, predict, and/or control a phenomenon (Gay, 1996), it should be carefully built focusing on validity, reliability, replicability, and generalizability.

 

Concepts to Consider

Some concepts to consider when developing a survey instrument are as follows:

  • Design: (unambiguous, free from bias, appropriate for the context)
    • Bias is systematics favoritism.
  • Sampling: (relevant for population sample)
  • Data Collection: Clear
  • Analysis:  Thorough
  • Reporting: Succinct

 

 

Types of Questions

Leading Questions:  Lead to false feedback, gathering untrue impressions.

  • Focused. They help to suit the immediate objectives of their survey. 
  • Efficient. They help achieve predetermined responses, simplifying data analysis.
  • Specific. They help avoid vague and ambiguous questioning.

 

 

Loaded Questions: Trick Question

    • Will you continue to support our amazing company?
    • Even if the respondent replied “no,” they’re still stating that the company is amazing.

 

Absolute Questions:  These questions are not flexible

  • These types of questions back respondents into a corner and usually have the options Yes/No as well as include wording such as “always,” “all,” “every,” “ever,” etc.
    • Consider the question: “Do you always eat breakfast?” (Yes/No)
      • Read literally this question would force almost all respondents to answer “No”.
      • The inflexibility of absolutes makes these types of questions too rigid to be used in a survey.

 

Scale Based: Without the option to provide neither agree nor disagree as an option.

  

Tips to survey:

  • Clear instructions
  • Keep your questionnaire short.
  • Keeps question order in mind (easier questions first)
  • Appropriateness (open ended or close ended questions)
  • Rating Scales (Likert Type)
  • Avoid technical terms and jargon.
  • Define things specifically.

 

Quantitative versus Qualitative

Lastly, surveys can be used in qualitative or quantitative research. One of the benefits of qualitative research methods, including open-ended questions, is that it allows the research participant to share freely; however, the analysis of open-ended questions, and most self-reported data, may be cumbersome in analysis and often difficult to quantify.  Utilizing quantitative data that can be leveraged to tell a story of the outcome utilizing visualizations and graphical insights.  (ex: Types of Quantitative Data Examples). Below is a resource by UTA on the topic.

 

QUALITATIVE

QUANTITATIVE

Methods include focus groups, unstructured or in-depth interviews, and reviews of documents for types of themes

Surveys, structured interviews, measurements & observations, and reviews of records or documents for numeric or quantifiable information

A primarily inductive process used to formulate theory or hypotheses

A primarily deductive process used to test pre-specified concepts, constructs, and hypotheses that make up a theory

More subjective: describes a problem or condition from the point of view of those experiencing it

More objective: provides observed effects (interpreted by researchers) of a program on a problem or condition

Text-based

Number-based

More in-depth information on a few cases

Less in-depth but more breadth of information across a large number of cases

Unstructured or semi-structured response options

Fixed response options, measurements, or observations

No statistical tests

Statistical tests are used for analysis

Less generalizable

More generalizable

 

The above is a guideline and not intended as a comprehensive document on research but can be utilized as a framework. Below are additional resources.

 

Things to consider:

 

Customarily regular research requires CITI training and IRB approval, defined below. 

1.       CITI program training: This training addresses ethics during research, and is customarily required by the researcher’s institution (link: Research, Ethics, and Compliance Training | CITI Program)

2.       IRB approval: This approval addresses human subject, interaction with human subjects, and access to identifiable information (link: Human Subjects Research (IRB) (utsa.edu))

 

 

Additional Resources: