"What is the recommended length of a composed survey?"
When District Coordinators are choosing which measures will be included on their survey (Survey Composing), it is important to keep the length of the survey in mind. For each of the measures in the menu, we have compiled statistics about how long it takes most students to complete. As measures are ticked off and added, the clock on the survey composing page will show you an estimate of the total time that students will require to complete the survey.
We strongly recommend that surveys are short enough to be completed in a single class period. A survey that is 40 minutes or less is ideal.
It can be tempting to add all the measures. If you are composing your region's survey and can't get all the measures you want onto the survey without exceeding 40 minutes we recommend that you consider strategies such as:
- Splitting measures across two different survey administrations. For example, you could administer an Engagement-oriented survey in the first half of the year and a Bullying and Safety-oriented survey in the second half.
- Start by picking a specific area of focus that you are most interested in learning about. We have focus-area themes such as Student Engagement, Inclusion, Bullying and School Safety, Healthy Schools, Effective Schools, and School Completion which have a suggested package of measures that add up to less than 40 minutes.