Statement of PurposeThe purpose of this questionnaire is to measure the extent to which school staff and students agree with statements that sufficient measures to prevent school violence exist. Furthermore, it will reveal staff and student classifications in the areas of gender, whether the subject is a staff member or student, and the grade level if the subject is a student. Description of PopulationThis pilot survey was conducted by gathering responses from staff members and students at Flintville Junior High School in Flintville, Tennessee. Selecting every 10th name from a list of approximately 350 students created a random sample of 10% of the student body. If the 10th student was not available, the next name on the list was chosen.
Almost all of the student questionnaires were used. Only one was not completed. In addition to the 10% sample of students, the entire teaching staff of the school was also asked to participate in the survey. Less than 70% of the staff returned completed questionnaires (17 out of 28).
These were used and combined with the student results . Description of the QuestionnaireThe questionnaire was devised by creating three subtopics: security personnel, security equipment / methods, and feelings of security at different times of day in different locations. Subjects were asked to respond to five questions in each subtopic. The questions in the questionnaire were presented in the Likert-type question format:Example: I feel very secure with the presence of faculty members monitoring the halls between classes. 000 00SAAUD SDSubjects were instructed that SA = strongly agree, A = agree, U = undecided, D= disagree, and SD = strongly disagree.
Subjects were asked to place an X in the box that most closely described the degree to which they agreed with the statement. Procedures for Scoring the QuestionnaireA numerical value was assigned to each answer. SA=5, A=4, U=3, D=2, and SD=1. Since each of the three subtopics consisted of five questions, there were a total of 15 questions on the questionnaire.
Therefore, the total point value of each questionnaire was somewhere within the range of 15- 75 points. Checking ItemsMost of the questions in each subtopic were designed to have internal consistency. That is, they were stated in such a way as to yield similar responses from the respondent. However, for each subtopic, one statement was made to deliberately yield a different response.
These items were used as “checking items” in each of the subtopics to insure that the respondents were paying close attention to their responses. For example, the following questions illustrate how four out of five statements are stated in such a way as to yield similar responses from the respondent. The fifth statement is made to deliberately yield a different response:1. Ice cream tastes very sweet. 000 00SAAUD SD2. Candy is very sweet.
000 00SAAUD SD3. Apple pie is very sweet. 000 00SAAUD SD4. Grape jelly is very sweet. 000 00SAAUD SD5. Lemons are very sweet.
000 00SAAUD SDIf a respondent was responding to statements 1-4 by using A (agree), and then responded to statement 5 with D (disagree), one could assume that the respondent was paying very close attention to the responses being made. However, if the response to statement 5 was also A(agree), it would be obvious that the respondent was not being careful with each response. For statistical purposes, if it is determined that the subject responded in such a way as to indicate consistency with the rest of his or her responses, the point value of the “checking item” would be inverted to show accurate representation, (i. e. , SA would be changed to SD, A would be changed to D, U would remain the same, etc. ).
Items 13, 14, and 15 on this questionnaire were checking items and point values were inverted accordingly.Notes of Special Interest Concerning Data FeedbackOf the 36 students that given questionnaires one student’s questionnaire was omitted due
