Survey coordination: Reducing the burden on schools

Obtaining cooperation from schools for school-based surveys is becoming increasingly difficult. This is particularly true because of the pressures of No Child Left Behind but is also because of the increasing requests for survey administration in schools. Some schools report having been approached almost weekly. As requests get more frequent, many schools approach total shutdown as the only efficient means of managing requests. Some have turned to monetary incentives to increase the likelihood that a school will participate in their survey. However, many state agencies cannot afford to pay sufficient incentives. In other states, laws and regulations make it difficult to pay incentives. One solution is survey coordination. At a minimum survey coordination uses coordinated sampling so that no school is asked to conduct more than one of the coordinated surveys. It may also extend to coordination during the training and administration of the surveys. This presentation will discuss the experiences in Oklahoma over three survey administrations to 1) coordinate multiple samples of the same survey (Youth Tobacco Survey), 2) coordinate similar surveys (Youth Tobacco Survey, American Legacy longitudinal), and experiences coordinating multiple surveys (Youth Tobacco Survey, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, Prevention Needs Assessment, bullying).