A major concern of student service deans and directors who may want to survey their students is ensuring students’ privacy and the confidentiality of student responses. Such concerns are understandable, especially given the well-publicized instances of breaches of even highly classified information, and the possible, if rare, legal ramifications. Students too, have such concerns and, if they are not fully convinced that their identifying information is secure and that their responses will be kept confidential, they may hedge responses or even refuse to participate in the survey.
The surveyor, in this case UDS, will also be very concerned, not only that privacy, confidentiality, and security are achieved, but also in convincing students, deans, and directors that it will be achieved, because a failure to do either will threaten the validity of the survey results. In short, it is in the best interest of all parties to ensure privacy of the respondents and the confidentiality and security of their responses. There is little that is ambiguous about this issue: confidentiality and privacy of survey responses are respondents’ right and UDS’s responsibility. One we take very seriously.
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Ξ 5th July, 2009 | →
BluePapers |
In a previous BluePaper we addressed the question of how many of your students you need to survey to get a “good” survey result-viz., the question of sample size-and we ended our answer to that question with another rhetorical question: Will a “good” sample ensure a “good” survey result? Leaving aside for the moment what exactly is meant by a “good” survey result, it will be obvious to anyone that, while a “bad” sample will ensure a “bad result,” it may not be as obvious that a “good” sample will not ensure a “good” survey result. It is the old “necessary but not sufficient” condition. Taking up the question of what exactly makes for a “good” survey result leads to a line of inquiry that, like the question of sample size, yields some surprises and provides some not-so-obvious answers.
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Ξ 30th October, 2008 | →
BluePapers |
“How large a sample do I need?” is the question we are most frequently asked by client institutions following their decision to conduct a survey. Clients are often very surprised with our answer, the most common of which is, “we recommend a census, not a sample.” That is, except perhaps in some cases of very large institutions, say of 40-50,000 students, we recommend that all students be surveyed. Why, because of the efficiency of online surveying.
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Ξ 27th September, 2008 | →
BluePapers |
We are happy to receive suggestions about topics for future BluePapers.
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Ξ 25th September, 2008 | →
BluePapers |