Education and Youth Risk Behavior
The Education Research unit is directed by Siobhan Power. She is assisted by four full-time staff and a team of part-time survey administrators. She is responsible for supervising all aspects of project development and planning, data collection, and analysis for multiple state-funded survey projects. The education unit of the BCSR works with clients to develop new surveys and adapt existing paper surveys to be programmed into Qualtrics, and is directly involved in collecting and analyzing survey data from key stakeholders: students, parents, teachers, and school administrators.
Projects
New Jersey Department of Education School Parent Survey |2005 – ONGOING
The Parent Survey involves an annual survey of parents of students with disabilities to determine how schools have facilitated parents’ involvement in their child’s program. The parent survey is disseminated statewide to all parents of students with disabilities over a five-year period. Each year a cohort of districts is randomly selected to participate, based on demographic information, to represent the population of students with disabilities residing in New Jersey. The BCSR works with the NJDOE to train New Jersey school districts to use an Excel template and FTP site to collect parent address data. Each annual cohort contains about 40,000 parent addresses. Surveys are administered by mail and on-line. The BCSR sets up a 1-800 number to respond to parents’ questions regarding the survey. Data are cleaned, scored, and analyzed using SPSS. Numerous reports are provided including sections on: response rates, demographics, item analysis, overall and individual district reports, and a district history report.
New Jersey Department of Education New Jersey Student Health Survey | 2006 – ONGOING
The New Jersey Student Health Survey is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. Survey information is collected from high school students about behaviors that are highly related to the most important causes of preventable premature illness and death among youth and young adults. The BCSR staff works with the New Jersey Department of Education to develop a paper survey, trains and supervises a team of full-time research assistants to administer the survey in schools located throughout the state of New Jersey, creates sample frames, enters and analyzes the data in SPSS, and writes a summary report on findings.
New Jersey Department of Education School Health Profiles Survey | 2008 – ONGOING
The New Jersey School Health Profiles Survey (Profiles) is a survey of middle and high school principals and lead health educators, using survey questions developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Data from the Profiles survey help state agencies monitor the status of: school health education requirements and content; physical education and physical activity; school health policies related to HIV infection/AIDS, tobacco-use prevention, and nutrition; asthma management activities; family and community involvement in school health programs; and school health coordination. The BCSR is responsible for all data collection and analysis for the Profiles survey.
New Jersey Department of Education Post School Outcomes Survey |2009 – ONGOING
The New Jersey Post School Outcomes Study is a survey of students with disabilities who exit high school (graduate, aged out, drop out or move and are not known to be continuing). The goal of this survey is to better understand the post school outcomes for students with disabilities. Emphasis is on measuring their engagement in work and/or further education one year after exiting. The BCSR is responsible for preparing data for analyses, conducting analyses, and completing statistical and narrative reports of findings for the five cohorts of districts participating in the study.
