Surveys


 * Survey questions from 2002. Please add or comment (with initials, please)**

1. Westminster’s emphasis on high academic standards is central to the school’s commitment to excellence. While perhaps self-evident, this statement should not be taken for granted. All that we do at W. is based on this premise. Do we need to know if our public starts to disagree with this premise? (JW). WWB: I think that the order of the questions may be interpreted as the order of value by the school (drafters of the survey.) For example, why ask about AP classes, then diversity and then mission. Is it useful to have the electronic survey randomly sort the questions?

This warrants discussion on priorities and the communication thereof (GR).

2. Westminster’s faculty provides sufficient advising and counseling support for students’ emotional and social well-being.

3. Westminster’s commitment to AP (Advanced Placement) courses is an important element of the high school’s academic program. (SB) SHOULD WE FOLLOWUP WITH A QUESTION ABOUT BOB RYSHKE'S WORK? I DON'T KNOW THE ACADEMIC TERMINOLOGY, BUT SOMETHING LIKE, "WESTMINSTER'S NEW COMMITMENT TO CREATIVE LEARNING AND EXPERIMENTATION IN MATH AND SCIENCE IS AN IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF THE HIGH SCHOOL'S ACADEMIC PROGRAM." The following two questions concern diversity, which here will refer to ethnic, racial, religious, international and socio-economic diversity.

4.a. Diversity in the student body is an important part of the educational experience.

4.b. The Westminster student body is meaningfully diverse. 5.a. Diversity in the faculty and administration is an important part of the educational experience. 5.b. The Westminster faculty and administration are meaningfully diverse.

6. Westminster’s academic program places undue pressure on students. DP --JUST A QUESTION OF TONE OF THE WORD "UNDUE." TO ME IT CONVEYS MORE SEVERITY THAN "TOO MUCH." THE RESULTS WERE ESSENTIALLY EVENLY SPLIT. WE AREN'T LOOKING FOR A HIGHER AGREE RESPONSE, BUT I'D BE CURIOUS TO SEE RESULTS WITH DIFFERENT WORDING.

7. The degree of competition at Westminster is a positive motivator for student success. (SB) BASED ON 45% OF RESPONDENTS AGREEING WITH QUESTION #6 AND 33% DISAGGREEING WITH #7 AND THE FACT THAT 6 OUT OF THE 7 KEY CONSTITUENTS RESPONDING TO THIS SURVEY (THE BOARD, THE DEPT. HEADS, THE FACULTY, THE PARENTS/ALUMNI, AND THE STUDENTS) RESPONDED THAT WESTMINSTER'S COMPETITIVENESS IS A WEAKNESS BECAUSE OF ITS IMPACT ON LOW SELF ESTEEM, WOULD IT BE HELPFUL TO ADD AN OPEN-ENDED INTERVIEW QUESTION FOR THE FOCUS GROUPS SUCH AS: "HOW CAN WESTMINSTER BETTER BALANCE THE SCHOOL'S COMMITMENT TO ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE SO THAT STUDENTS ARE NOT PUT UNDER UNDUE PRESSURE AND, THEREFORE, LEARN AT THEIR PERSONAL BEST?" SURVEY QUESTIONS #28 AND #30 HELP ANSWER THIS QUESTION QUANTITATIVELY BUT AN OPEN ENDED QUESTION WOULD HELP US UNDERSTAND RESPONDENTS' QUALITATIVE PERCEPTIONS. 8. Westminster’s Christian mission is sufficiently realized in the daily life of the school. 10.Westminster’s teachers make sufficient use of different teaching methods to address the developmental needs of their students. (SB) I AM NOT SURE WHAT WE LEARN FROM THIS QUESTION. ALTHOUGH 81% OF RESPONDENTS AGREED WITH THIS STATEMENT, I WONDER IF THEY REALLY KNEW THE KEY ELEMENTS OF THE SCHOOL'S EDUCATIONAL MISSION AND THEREFORE HAD NO VISCERAL REASON TO DISAGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT. SHOULD WE BE MORE SPECIFIC? DP -- I AGREE (SB) 70% OF RESPONDENTS AGREED WITH THIS QUESTION. DOES THIS TELL US THAT RESPONDENTS ARE HAPPY WITH OUR WIDE RANGE OF ACADEMIC, ATHLETIC, ARTISTIC, OR SERVICE PROGRAMS? SHOULD WE BE MORE SPECIFIC SO THAT WE BETTER UNDERSTAND OUR STRENGTHS? AT: Environmental sustainability is an item on Bill's 'Hot List' and seems to have evolved as a major initiative at the school, to the extent of a separate subcommitte. Do we include a survey question on this, maybe subsequent to question above? (e.g., "Westminster's curriculum should focus more on environmental awareness/sustainability.")
 * 1) Westminster’s teachers have a sufficient understanding of the developmental needs of their students.
 * 1) Teachers in different classes/sections of the same course/grade provide uniform coverage of the material.
 * 1) Westminster students have sufficient opportunity for involvement and growth in the arts.
 * 1) Westminster students have sufficient opportunity for involvement and growth in athletics.
 * 2) Westminster has a clearly defined educational mission.
 * 1) Westminster provides the program and services to meet the needs and interests of a wide variety of students.
 * 1) Westminster’s curriculum should focus more on global issues (e.g., international current events, culture, geography, religion).

WWB: Are we interested in simply sufficiency for these two questions above and one below? AT: To Wendy's point, it might be interesting/informative to pose a survey questions where respondents (faculty, parents, students and graduates) are asked to rank how they perceive the relative importance of certain values that should characterize a Westinster graduate. For example, with respect to values, rank things like: Ethics & integrity; discipline & fortitude (or work ethic); environmental stewardship; independent thinker; passion for learning/intellectual curiousity. Or maybe pose it in context of how well Westminster is instilling these values (rather than ranking their importance). NOTE: Never mind! --- this is pretty much covered in Q30 below.
 * 1) The Westminster education should include more experiential and service-based learning.
 * 1) Communication between the school and its constituencies (e.g., parents, faculty, students) is effective.
 * 1) Westminster’s high school curriculum should offer greater choice and fewer specific graduation requirements.
 * 2) WWB: Can we really offer less graduation required course options?
 * 1) Westminster should promote more exchange (e.g., international) programs for students and faculty/
 * 2) WWB: Should we expect that all will say 'yes'. What does this tell us?
 * 1) Westminster provides sufficient opportunity for students to learn and use technology.
 * 1) Westminster provides sufficient instruction in the use of technology for faculty. DP -- THIS HAD THE HIGHEST NO OPINION AT 36%. MAYBE BETTER SUITED FOR A STUDENT/FACULTY ONLY SURVEY.
 * 1) Westminster places sufficient emphasis on student citizenship (e.g., responsibility, manners, stewardship, honor).
 * 2) WWB: Would we care to separate these values? What if manners are well emphasized in my view but honor is not, what would we learn?

a. higher salary b. smaller teaching load c. additional non-salary benefit WWB: Should not pick just one of these 3? If faculty member want more remuneration then they all pick a and not c but this would not mean that faculty don't want better/more benefits. Do we consider asking to select along a scale with salary on one end and teaching load on another. Would another method be to ask: would you rather adjust your salary or teaching load? Would we do better to eliminate this kind of question here and do a faculty survey separately since this survey group would be too small a sample to be meaningful.
 * 1) Westminster’s graduates are well-prepared for college.
 * 1) Westminster’s graduates are well-prepared for life after college.
 * 1) Faculty only: would you prefer (check one)

AT: One item on Bill's long-range 'Hot List' was further examination of the feasibility/desireability of faculty housing. Do we want to take this opportunity to survey faculty on this topic? (e.g., as a lead-in question: "Related to non-salary benefits, the provision of on-campus faculty housing would be an effective way for Westminster attract and retain faculty members" ... strongly agree -- strongly disagree). Could leave it as a general question for now, and if survey results indicate a lot of interest, could drill down in subseqent faculty-only survey. The significant majority of faculty respondents preferred higher salary.

28. Student stress is mostly the result of (pick no more than two): Wendy: Do we assume that all believe that students are stressed? Should only those who think so OR who think it is significant be asked to respond. Who is doing the over-scheduling? school, student or parent. Seems that option 1 should not be included with 2 to 6. Survey monkey may not prevent answering for more than two. How do we use the answer if a respondent chooses more than 2? Maybe this should be a ranking question. Do we want to know what 'other' is if selected? What else could we expect to be included in other? 29. Which two academic areas at Westminster do you perceive to be the strongest? Wendy: Would we rather get a response that ranks these in order of strength? How are 'we' defining strongest? Should only the depts be included that are required. If I expect Math English History and Science to be the strongest because I consider these core, then responding that PE and Art are strongest is a legitimate answer but I could be misinterpreting the message in this response. DP -- AGREE. WOULD BE MORE MEANINGFUL TO GET MORE DATA THROUGH RANKING OR SELECTING MORE THAN TWO. OGR: Also, I would like to get more specific feedback on the quality/relative strength of/need for our co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. Westminster may have to make programmatic changes as a consequence of the challenging economic environment. What offerings in these areas are most valued by our constituencies?
 * 1) over-scheduling
 * 2) parental expectations
 * 3) teacher expectations
 * 4) personal expectations
 * 5) peer expectations
 * 6) other
 * 1) Arts
 * 2) Biblical Studies
 * 3) English
 * 4) Foreign Language
 * 5) History/Social Sciences
 * 6) Math
 * 7) Physical Education
 * 8) Science

30. Identify three attributes that you believe should describe //more// Westminster graduates: Wendy: If we include both compassion and empathy, and the respondent believes this concept to be significant, I suspect that they'll choose both and that our results will be skewed. Do we consider including resilliency? What do we mean by balance? Are we subtlely expecting all respondents to include balance? Should this question be to rank all choices? If more were added to the list would we allow more to be chosen? Survey monkey may not be able to limit responses to three. Should choices be in alphabetic order? ascending or descending? Would intellectual curiosity and 'life long learner' mean the same? Do we have an idea in mind about what we would 'do' if as an example, empathy or spirituality were the top two by large measure? Should global awareness or environmental awareness or philanthropic or 'service focused' be among these? Is offereing other just another option to include another similar answer to one already selected, which skews the results (i.e. I choose responsibility and add accountability as an other or creative and add entrepreneur)? a. creativity b. compassion c. intellectual curiosity d. self-discipline e. responsibility f. empathy g. spirituality h. leadership i. balance __ j.  Other ___ Should we just have this question be open-ended? While harder to tabulate, the results might be more meaningful (GR).

If you have any additional comments/suggestions, please use the text box below.

AT: Back to Bill's 'Hot List' -- there are no survey questions that really get to his issue of W's community relations and communications. We should probably see how respondents feel about this topic, but I'm not clear on where Bill wants to take this, because it could encompass a lot of things. Are we talking about expanding the school's programs of outreach and community service (becoming a "good neighbor"), OR enhancing the image of W in a positive way to community at large (i.e., to help recruitment, attain diversity goals, or to aid in development/fundraising), OR creating meaningful partnerships/collaborations with local business, higher education and/or community organizations that could benefit students/faculty, OR all of the foregoing??

I recommend more open-ended questions in general (GR). There is a lot of research saying the most important questions to ask is "Liklihood to recommend ," in this case Westminister (GR).

Affiliation (check all that apply) Graduate __Student__ Faculty __Parent__ Trustee __Emeritus Trustee__ Staff

If faculty member, indicate which division and (if applicable) academic department

__Elementary__ Junior High __High School__

Department Arts __Biblical Studies__ English/Reading __Foreign Language__ History and Social Sciences __Math__ Physical Education __Science__ Other