Biased Survey Alert!

We're sure by now, every elementary school parent has received the "Elementary Parent Survey on Report Cards" in their report card folders.

We only have one question. What kind of clown put this survey together? Talk about a biased survey!

Two years ago, we did a blog post on how easy it was to find information on the Internet. A wealth of information can be gathered from Google alone, pertaining to just about anything. Tonight we conducted a search on Google using the search terms "Developing a survey" and wouldn't you know it, a whole bunch of information came up on this topic. We learned many things. It's too bad the person that developed the parent survey on report cards didn't research the topic before putting this survey together.

'The purpose of a survey is to get accurate information, not to sell or further market to your stakeholders. Despite the apparent marketing advantage this might have, this will not only bias the data you're getting (ruining the ultimate purpose of the survey), but it'll cause a certain percentage of the respondents to become cynical ('do they really care about the information I'm giving them, or is it just an excuse to sell me on this program?') and not complete the survey.'

It has been proven time and again that the way a question is asked can have an influence upon the answer. Aside from question number one, every question in the parent survey on report cards is biased.

Questions not asked in a neutral manner will lead the respondent toward a particular answer. The way a question is phrased may reflect the developer's underlying opinion.

Take for example, the question "I am satisfied that the new report card is easy to understand." The developer is leading you to believe not only that the report card is easy to understand, but also that you are satisfied with it.

Some questions can be downright confusing. Take for example question number seven. "I am satisfied with the written comments provided by teachers." Seriously, which teacher? Almost every student in the school has at least five different teachers. In grades two through four, some students have as many as seven teachers. So how can question number seven be answered? What if you are satisfied with some teachers but not with others?

Some questions, such as number three, are double barreled. In other words, there are two questions wrapped into one. A double barreled question will severely impact the results of the data being gathered.

Many parents prefer anonymity so they are free to speak their minds. Returning the survey to their child's teacher will undoubtedly curtail honest responses. What parent will freely speak their mind on this survey and then turn it in to a teacher without thinking that the teacher will be biased against their child? The intent of parents may not be to criticize the teacher, but truthfulness on a survey may be taken the wrong way. How many times have you thought to yourself, "I don't want to say anything because I am afraid they will take it out on my child"? Enough said.

What makes things even worse is that in the very near future, you are going to get the results from this survey and they will be anything but accurate. For instance, you probably won't know how many people were given the survey, how many separate families filled out the survey, the percentage of returns, etc. Families that that have more than one child can fill out several surveys based on the number of children they have thus skewing the results. For instance, if the district receives back four surveys, no one knows if they are from one family with four children (one survey for each child) or four separate families. Some people won't take the time to fill out individual surveys for each child. Are they supposed to? The directions are unclear because there are none!

The bottom line in all of this survey mumbo jumbo is that no matter what, the data that actually needs to be collected will undoubtedly be biased and inaccurate. Once again there will be fist pumping and shouts of joy declaring that everyone is either satisfied or very satisfied when in reality they couldn't be farther from the truth.

To conclude, we'd like to answer the wonderfully worded question number 9.

"Anything else we should know?"

Yes! With 13 million dollars in the bank, our administration needs to spend a little bit of money putting together a decent survey that will provide accurate data with which to build upon.