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Following the 5 steps described in Creating Custom Questions: Strategies for Success, see how one jurisdiction created actionable results from a contextually relevant custom question: How often are you hungry at school because there is not enough food at home for breakfast or lunch? |
1. Identified area of inquiry: Teachers reported that students were frequently distracted and complained of hunger throughout the day. To discover the reason why students complained of hunger, the jurisdiction decided to include a custom question on food availability in the OurSCHOOL survey. 2. Determined the purpose of the additional information being sought: The jurisdiction suspected that a lack of availability of food in the home may be leading to students’ hunger. If the results confirmed this, data collected would be used in a grant proposal to start breakfast and lunch programs throughout the jurisdiction. 3. Ensured that the content allowed participants to respond from their experience: Students were asked to reflect on their home-life experience as it related to the availability of food. 4. Chose an appropriate response format: They chose a Multiple-Choice Question to collect quantifiable data that could be applied as a drill-down in the Interactive Charts to identify which groups of students were most vulnerable. 5. Used words that would yield actionable results an avoid common pitfalls: “How often are you hungry at school because there is not enough food at home for breakfast or lunch?” Response options: Never / Once or twice a month / Once or twice a week / Every day.
After review, the question was clearly written and allowed students to speak from their experience. The results were used in a grant proposal to start breakfast and lunch programs throughout the jurisdiction. |