Student feelings on school vio
Student feelings on school vioStatement of Purpose
The purpose of this questionnaire is to measure the extent to which school staff and students agree with statements that sufficient measures to prevent school violence exist. Furthermore, it will reveal staff and student classifications in the areas of gender, whether the subject is a staff member or student, and the grade level if the subject is a student.
Description of Population
This pilot survey was conducted by gathering responses from staff members and students at Flintville Junior High School in Flintville, Tennessee. Selecting every 10th name from a list of approximately 350 students created a random sample of 10% of the student body. If the 10th student was not available, the next name on the list was chosen. Almost all of the student questionnaires were used. Only one was not completed. In addition to the 10% sample of students, the entire teaching staff of the school was also asked to participate in the survey. Less than 70% of the staff returned completed questionnaires (17 out of 28). These were used and combined with the student results .
Description of the Questionnaire
The questionnaire was devised by creating three subtopics: security personnel, security equipment / methods, and feelings of security at different times of day in different locations. Subjects were asked to respond to five questions in each subtopic. The questions in the questionnaire were presented in the Likert-type question format:
Example:
I feel very secure with the presence of faculty members monitoring the halls between classes.
0 0 0 0 0
SA A U D SD
Subjects were instructed that SA = strongly agree, A = agree, U = undecided, D= disagree, and SD = strongly disagree. Subjects were asked to place an X in the box that most closely described the degree to which they agreed with the statement.
Procedures for Scoring the Questionnaire
A numerical value was assigned to each answer. SA=5, A=4, U=3, D=2, and SD=1. Since each of the three subtopics consisted of five questions, there were a total of 15 questions on the questionnaire. Therefore, the total point value of each questionnaire was somewhere within the range of 15- 75 points.
Checking Items
Most of the questions in each subtopic were designed to have internal consistency. That is, they were stated in such a way as to yield similar responses from the respondent. However, for each subtopic, one statement was made to deliberately yield a different response. These items were used as "checking items" in each of the subtopics to insure that the respondents were paying close attention to their responses. For example, the following questions illustrate how four out of five statements are stated in such a way as to yield similar responses from the respondent. The fifth statement is made to deliberately yield a different response:
1. Ice cream tastes very sweet.
0 0 0 0 0
SA A U D SD
2. Candy is very sweet.
0 0 0 0 0
SA A U D SD
3. Apple pie is very sweet.
0 0 0 0 0
SA A U D SD
4. Grape jelly is very sweet.
0 0 0 0 0
SA A U D SD
5. Lemons are very sweet.
0 0 0 0 0
SA A U D SD
If a respondent was responding to statements 1-4 by using A (agree), and then responded to statement 5 with D (disagree), one could assume that the respondent was paying very close attention to the responses being made. However, if the response to statement 5 was also A(agree), it would be obvious that the respondent was not being careful with each response. For statistical purposes, if it is determined that the subject responded in such a way as to indicate consistency with the rest of his or her responses, the point value of the "checking item" would be inverted to show accurate representation, (i.e., SA would be changed to SD, A would be changed to D, U would remain the same, etc.). Items 13, 14, and 15 on this questionnaire were checking items and point values were inverted accordingly.
Notes of Special Interest Concerning Data Feedback
Of the 36 students that given questionnaires one student's questionnaire was omitted due to a failure to complete the questions on the back of the form. In addition to this, only 4 individual items were left blank.
Of the 25 staff members that were given questionnaires, 19 responded. 2 of the 19 were omitted due to failure to complete questions on the back of the form. In addition to this, only 1 individual item was left blank, but 3 staff respondents failed to identify their sex. 3 males and 11 females did identify their sex.
Item Analysis
The questionnaire was given to the pilot group as described previously in the description of the population. After the numerical scores were determined for each questionnaire, the total scores were arranged from top to bottom in descending order. The rest of the procedure was then used to complete the item analysis by determining Dmax and Dmin for each item as described in the instructions. The following pages show the results of the analysis. My criteria was 8.5. Any item which had a difference (D)