Student survey class administration (hard copy)

Administration instructions

Check that you have one student survey for each student.

It is important that all students are carefully briefed and provided with full instructions.

Please select a time of day when students are settled, interruptions are unlikely and the computers are available for the class. Each student will need direct access to a computer.

The survey should take 25-35 minutes to complete.

As a teacher administering the survey you will need to perform the following tasks:

1. set time aside to conduct the survey
2. explain what the survey is about
3. read survey instructions to the students
4. demonstrate to students how to record responses to survey questions and review their responses
5. collect up the completed student surveys in a confidential way.

Note: Some students will need extra assistance e.g assistance with reading and comprehension.

Why should students complete a Student Survey?

This text can be used by teachers as an explanation of how completing these surveys can be beneficial for them and the school.

A survey is one way of collecting information from a lot of people. By listening to what students think, your school can find out how to make school better for everyone.

This survey is about what students think about school, and whether students feel safe and cared about at school.

Reading the survey aloud to class groups

This survey is designed to be read aloud to Year 5-6 and possibly Year 7-8 students. A copy of teacher read aloud instructions is provided for this purpose. Ask the students to read the survey silently as you read it aloud. Take time to make sure students understand the instructions, and in particular how to show their response to each of the survey items. When you read the actual survey questions, give students adequate time (about 8-10 seconds) to think about and then click on their responses to each.

Students are expected to work independently and not discuss their answers with their classmates. 

Completing the survey

The survey has been designed to be straightforward and non-threatening.  If a student finds it difficult or unsettling to complete please use your discretion as to whether he or she should continue.  Students are not asked to provide their name or their teacher’s name, please ensure that students are aware of this. 

Pastoral support

Prior to administering the survey please ensure that there is a pastoral care approach in place that can be used in the event that students need to talk further about their experiences e.g. referral of the students to a person in charge of pastoral care such as the AP, DP, or school counsellor. For older students it may be appropriate to provide phone helpline details such as:

• Youthline (phone: 0800 37 66 33; Text for free: 234; Email: talk@youthline.co.nz)  
• 0800 NO BULLY (0800 66 28 55)

Students reviewing their responses

When a student has completed the survey, encourage them to review their responses by going back over the survey.  Once they are satisfied with their responses they can hand their script in.

Collecting and returning the forms

To help preserve their anonymity and encourage students to answer honestly, we are asking that you nominate a responsible class member to collect the completed survey forms in an envelope with the class name labelled on it. They can then seal this envelope and take it to the school office to be data entered along with other classes participating in the surveying.

Data entering the Student Survey scripts

Once students have completed the Student Survey hard copy scripts you will need to data enter these. You will also need to know what class the student scripts have come from.

To data enter the student scripts:

1. Make sure you are logged in and at your survey admin area.
2. Select the admin icon for the Student Survey.
3. In the Student Survey admin page click on the data entry icon for the respective class 
4. Make sure you take note of the data entry instructions and codes to use for numeric data entry.
5. Enter the numeric codes for each student script – make sure you mark on the scripts to indicate that they have been entered.
6. Repeat this for each student script.

You can also have  hard copy Student Survey scripts scanned or data entered (at a cost of $2 per script) by NZCER. Please ensure survey scripts are batched by class and clearly labelled. 

Alternatively, before conducting the survey you can choose to enable online access for the Student Survey at a cost of $1 per student, see Activating and managing online Student Survey access.