Pre-College Recruiting Surveys

Description | What do the instruments measure? | Sample Survey Items | Pre-College Question Sets | Peer Observation Form | Adapting Surveys | Implementer Guide | When is it best to administer the surveys? | IRB approval | Using the Results | Data-Entry Templates

Downloads: Encuesta previa a la actividad para niveles superiores de escuelas primarias - en español | Upper and Lower Elementary School Surveys | Adult Surveys for Elementary – English | Encuesta previa para miembros de familia o apoderados – en español | High School Surveys | Middle School Surveys| Optional Pre-College Question Sets | Peer Observation Form| Implementer Guide | Data-Entry Templates

Online SurveyMonkey version of the English language surveys are available for export. To find out more contact AWE.

Description

Lower and Upper Elementary School Surveys

There are three types of AWE-surveys designed for use with elementary-aged children:

1. Lower-elementary surveys (Spanish & English, Grade 2)
2. Upper-elementary surveys (Spanish & English, Grades 3-5)
3. Caregivers surveys (Spanish & English, for parents, accompanying adults).

Lower-Elementary Surveys:
The lower-elementary surveys are designed for primary-aged children. They are aimed toward children who are enrolled or rising into second grade. They will also work well with third grade students.

Additionally, these surveys might be used for older children who are challenged linguistically (such as English Language Learners). Generally, these surveys have fewer questions and less reading and writing.

If children struggle with reading, program facilitators might read the questions aloud to them.

The Lower-Elementary Pre-Activity Survey should be given at the beginning of the program.

The Lower-Elementary Immediate Post Survey should be given at the conclusion of the program.

Upper-Elementary Surveys:
The upper-elementary surveys are designed for children in grades 3 or higher. For some upper-elementary children, you may wish to consider customizing the AWE Middle School Surveys.

The Upper-Elementary Pre-Activity Survey should be given at the beginning of the program.

The Upper-Elementary Immediate Post Survey should be given at the conclusion of the program.

The Upper-Elementary 3-6 Month Post Survey should be administered 3-6 months after the program has ended.

Caregivers Survey:

These surveys should be administered to the primary caregiver (usually a parent or other close relative) of the child participants.

The Pre-Activity Caregiver Survey can be:

1. Mailed to caregivers before the program for them to complete and return or bring with them to registration
2. Distributed for completion at the first session or program registration.

The Post-Activity Caregiver Survey should be mailed to parents 1-3 months after the program concludes.

AWE Excel  Data Entry Templates are available for elementary school surveys.

Elementary School Surveys were developed by Christine Cunningham, Ph.D., Vice President, Museum of Science and Founder and Director, Engineering is Elementary.

The AWE Elementary-Level School surveys are funded by the NSF Research Gender in Science and Engineering Division (SWE AWE #) and are a joint product of the AWE Project, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP). 

Keeping looking in this spot for the Spanish Versions of Elementary-Level Surveys in April 2010.

Middle and High School Surveys

AWE Middle and High School surveys comprise core, or basic, surveys that address typical objectives of pre-college activities and additional question sets that can be added to the core survey to fit the specific objectives of your activity or program. The objectives upon which the AWE surveys and optional question sets are based were identified through a needs assessment and literature review of STEM outreach activities.

AWE Core Instruments address “core objectives” that appeared in almost all of the activities surveyed.

AWE Pre-College Question Sets measure objectives not included in the core instruments. These question sets can be added at any point in the survey.

There are three versions of each Middle and High School pre-college survey:

1. Engineering
2. Science
3. Computer Science

Each of these surveys has 1) specific sets of questions related to the discipline; and 2) as many common questions as possible. The latter allows for the possibility of comparing participant responses across disciplines allowing analysis and comparison of data from many organizations using these tools. Accordingly, several questions use combinations of disciplines deliberately (e.g. Are you enrolled in a special engineering or science curriculum? Work that allows me to use math, computer, engineering or science skills.) . This organization of questions simplifies the adaptation of AWE surveys to programs covering more than one discipline or other STEM discipline. (See “Adapting AWE Surveys” below for more information.)

Tools available are:

Click here to find the AWE High School LAESE (Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy) instrument.

All of these instruments are best suited as assessment tools for pre-college recruitment and/or skills development activities and tested with girls and boys.

For situations when administering the Pre-participation, Immediate Post-, and 3-6 Month Post-participation surveys is not possible, use the immediate post. This would be applicable for activities that are not high impact for your program or are not highly resource (in both human and financial terms).

Note that using this version of the instrument will provide formative feedback on the event but because of the lack of a pre-assessment, you will not be able to determine the impact of the activity.

Recommends:
Use the Pre-Participation survey and the Immediate Post-Participation surveys together so that you have baseline data to determine the impact of your event on the participants. To determine whether the event has a lasting impact, use the Follow-Up Participation survey three to six months after the event as well.In these ways, you can measure the impact of pre-college activities (such as camps, workshops, recruiting days, open houses) with objectives to:

• Recruit participants into science, engineering, or computer studies
• Promote/support skills development
• Encourage science, engineering, or computer preparatory pre-college course work
• Promote awareness of science, engineering, or computer careers

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What do the instruments measure?

Using the pre-college suite of surveys you can determine whether specific activities met your objectives and use this information to improve activities and make evaluation decisions. Specifically, the instruments assess the following topics:

Lower and Upper Elementary Surveys

• Attitude toward science and/or engineering.
• Interest and awareness of science and/or engineering

Middle and High School Surveys

• Course-taking plans for high school.
• Whether participant intends to study science, engineering, or computer.
• What participant knows about what engineers, scientists, or computer scientists do.
• What factors (if any) about being an engineer, scientist, or computer scientist appeal to participant.
• Events or persons that influenced participants' study plans.
• Participant skill and confidence level in areas that are important for successfully completing a science, engineering, or computer degree.
• Where participants plan to study science, engineering, or computer science/engineering.
• Her/his satisfaction with the quality of the activity in which she/he has participated.

In all cases, administration of the post-survey provides information to you on how your activity impacted her attitudes and practices.

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Sample Survey Items

These are examples of items that are present in both the Pre- and Immediate-Post and Post-surveys. Items are present in both instrument versions so that you may determine the changes in student responses.

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Objective-based Question Sets
AWE MS and HS question sets are optional and designed to be used in addition to AWE Core instruments to cover specific objectives that may not be included in every STEM outreach activity. The question sets are listed below. For a complete list click here.  

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Peer Observation Form
The Peer Observation Form offers an additional method to evaluate the efficacy of an activity and the performance of presenters, facilitators and other volunteers in outreach activities. It is designed for use by peer observers of an activity, presentation, or other events. Use it to track:

• Specifics of an activity, such as demographics and timing
• Ability of an activity to engage participants
• Ability of an activity to meet objectives
• Volunteer leader performance

Results provide an additional assessment tool to help organizers:

• Deploy volunteers effectively
• Allocate resources to activities that are the most effective
• Provide information to volunteers that will help them hone their presentations or activities

 
When to use:

• When volunteers lead activities for your organization. This is particularly important if pre-training is not possible. Results from the offer an additional method to assess the activity and volunteer performance and provides feedback for volunteers.
• When volunteers go into classrooms to talk about careers or guide a hands-on project. Teachers often use this time to leave the classroom. Asking teachers to complete the form or a version of the form engages him or her in the presentation and provides valuable feedback for your organization and the individual presenter.

Adapting Surveys

Adapt AWE surveys to fit your activity and add sets of questions as appropriate. All AWE pre-college surveys are tested and validated, so remain as true to the originals as possible. This also makes it easier to compare data. 

Adding questions:

SWE AWE Extra Question Sets offer questions relating to Sense of Community, Hands-on Projects and Activities, Presentations, Presenter and Activity/Presentation combines and rating scales for Recruiting to a STEM Career or to a your institution. Simply select and add these to modify your survey.

Add questions to the survey such as institutional information and specific, activity-related questions in order to meet your objectives or adapt existing questions to address additional STEM disciplines.

Yellow highlighting in the downloadable paper versions indicates where surveys can be personalized for your program by adding the program name and other information. For detailed discussion, see Implementer Guide.

Note: In all cases, AWE is interested in hearing about your adaptations and creation of additional questions or sets of questions. AWE would like to consider them for inclusion in the future AWE suite of surveys so that they can be shared with others. You and/or your program will be credited on the website and on all downloadable documents. Send your adaptations to awe@engr.psu.edu.

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Implementer Guide
The Implementer Guide offers details on tools available including objectives, adaptation of surveys, etc. Click here to download.

When is it best to administer the surveys?

Remember, you must administer both the Core Pre- and Post- Participation surveys to assess the impact of your activity. For highly visible and highly resourced activities, use the Follow-up Participation survey as well. Data gathered immediately after activities often reflects the high enthusiasm of participants; data gathered six months later can tell you whether self-reported participant changes are long lasting, which activity components have long impact, and which need to be improved.

• Administer the pre-participation survey in advance of the planned activity
  1. By mail or
  2. On site, immediately prior to an activity (be sure to allow time in your schedule).
  If administering by mail, view a sample cover letter to accompany the instrument.



• Administer the post-participation survey before students leave the activity (be sure to allow time in your schedule).



• Administer the Follow-Up survey by mail, 2-6 months following an activity.

Use the following table of estimated completion times to help plan your data collection.

Whenever you use any AWE instruments, you are responsible for the well-being and the privacy of all respondents. Therefore ...

Recommends:
Before collecting any data using AWE instruments, we strongly suggest you obtain IRB approval.

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Does this instrument require me to get Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval?

Contact the IRB at your institution - they must answer this question for you. As with all AWE instruments, a complete review and approval from your institution’s Institutional Review Board may be required prior to implementation of this survey. A good rule of thumb is that if you any data that will be reported outside your organization, you need IRB approval.

IRB requires that when you administer surveys, you must educate participants about possible risks and benefits involved in taking surveys, obtain their consent before involving them in your research and keep them informed about how data will be used. This is called the "informed consent process."

IRB approval for students under 18 years of age requires obtaining consent from the students' parents or guardians.

Visit The Institutional Review Board (IRB) Process page for general information about the informed consent process.

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Using the Results

The instruments contain both "formative" items - that is items designed to help you improve this activity, and "summative" items that are designed to ascertain if the activity is meeting its intended objectives. Using both types of items, you may use the survey results in the following ways.

• Activity improvement:
  • Examine results of items that address participant satisfaction and suggestions to help redesign the activity for maximum impact.
  • Compare the results of the pre and post surveys to see whether the activity is meeting its intended objectives and adjust activity based on the degree to which the activity is meeting these objectives
  Make evaluation decisions
  
  • Conduct a cost benefit analysis - that is, examine the effectiveness of this activity in meeting its objectives relative to its cost. Is the cost worth the results you are getting?
  • Compare this activity in terms of its effectiveness to others your program offers. What is the best way to invest limited resources? Adjust resources towards activities that are meeting their intended objectives and supporting your overall program mission.
  Report to your stakeholders
  • Use instrument results as authoritative sources of evidence for funding support and other administrative reporting.
• Link the assessment data you collect with these instruments with the activity participation tracking features available in the AWE ADAPT tracking database software.

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Download the Pre-College Instruments

AWE Adult Surveys for Elementary Activities

Adult Surveys for Elementary-English
Pre-Activity Survey for Family Members or Caregivers of Participants
Post-Activity Survey for Family Members or Caregivers of Participants

Encuesta previa papa miembros de familia o apoderados-en español
Encuesta previa a la actividad para miembros de familia o apoderados de los participantes
Encuesta posterior a la actividad para miembros de familia o apoderados de los participantes

Surveys for Elementary-Aged Participants-English

Lower Elementary School Pre-Participation Survey
Lower Elementary School Post-Participation Survey

Upper Elementary School Pre-Participation Survey
Upper Elementary School Immediate Post-Participation Survey
Upper Elementary School 3-6 Month Post-Participation Survey

AWE Spanish Surveys

Encuestas para participantes de escuelas primarias - español

Encuesta previa a la actividad para niveles inferiores de escuelas primarias

Encuesta posterior a la actividad para niveles inferiores de escuelas primarias
Encuesta previa a la actividad para niveles superiores de escuelas primarias

Encuesta posterior a la actividad para niveles superiores de escuelas primarias

Encuesta posterior a la actividad para niveles superiores de escuelas primarias para ser efectuada después de 3 ó 6 meses

Instrucciones para las Encuestas para estudiantes de escuelas primarias

Optional Pre-College Question Sets to Add to Core Surveys

Extra Questions for Sense of Community, Hands-on, Presentations and Recruiting

Core Surveys for High School-Aged Participants

Engineering Version
Core High School Pre-Participation Survey
Core High School Immediate Post-Participation Survey
Core High School 3-6 Month Post-Participation Survey

Science Version
Core High School Pre-Participation Survey
Core High School Immediate Post-Participation Survey
Core High School 3-6 Month Post-Participation Survey

Computer Science Version
Core High School Pre-Participation Survey
Core High School Immediate Post-Participation Survey
Core High School 3-6 Month Post-Participation Survey

Core Surveys for Middle School-Aged Participants

Engineering Version
Core Middle School Pre-Participation Survey
Core Middle School Immediate Post-Participation Survey
Core Middle School 3-6 Month Post-Participation Survey

Science Version
Core Middle School Pre-Participation Survey
Core Middle School Immediate Post-Participation Survey
Core Middle School 3-6 Month Post-Participation Survey

Computer Science Version
Core Middle School Pre-Participation Survey
Core Middle School Immediate Post-Participation Survey
Core Middle School 3-6 Month Post Participation Survey

Additional Pre-College Tools

AWE Instrument Implementer Guide

Peer Observation Form

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