Universal Education

Foundation

Methodology For Conducting The Voice of Children Survey

By

Chief Executive Officer

Alpha International For Research Polling and Informatics

Al-irsal st, Al-Karmil building, 1st floor #5

Ramallah, West Bank

Palestine

Tel: +970-2-298-7278

Fax:+970-2-298-890

Mobile:+970-599-733374

Website: www.alpha.ps

Dr. Faisal Awartani

The process of conducting a survey among school students

Design of the questionnaire (that is transforming the

objectives into measurable set of indictors).

Piloting the questionnaire as well as the process of

conducting the survey .

Sample design .

Training of field researchers .

Data collection.

Data entry and data cleaning.

Data analysis and reporting.

Questionnaire Design

Design of the questionnaire will be the

responsibility of Universal Education

Foundation (UEF) research team .

The design of the questionnaire will be

shared with the different stakeholders.

The design of the questions should take into

consideration the targeted age group by the

survey .

Piloting

Piloting of the questionnaire as well as the process of the survey is important for detecting any problems that might occur among students while answering the questionnaire.

The students might raise certain concerns about some of the questions in terms of how they might understand these questions as well as their difficulty levels.

The pilot is also important for testing the logistics in terms of how the school personal might interact and be responsive for the field researchers.

Sample Selection

Sample selection will be done using multistage cluster sampling. First a sample of clusters will be selected in different areas of the West Bank and Gaza using probability proportional to size sampling (PPS). Each cluster will represent one section of student from 9th or 10th grade students. Then all the students in the selected section will be interviewed.

Probability proportional to size sampling guarantees obtaining unbiased estimators for the parameters of interest.

The first stage cluster sampling will be done as follows:

Location number

Section size ( # of students in each 9th or 10th grade sections)

Cumulative

1S1C1=S1

2S2C2=S1+S2

3S3C3=S1+S2+S3

4S4C4=S1+S2+S3+S4 .

.

.

NSN CN=S1+…+SN

The sampling interval L = CN/ k, where k the number of clusters to be selected.

A random number X0 is selected from the interval [0,L].

The ith random number Ri=X0+(i-1)*L is calculated.

The ith population location is selected in the sample if Ri belongs to the interval [Ci, C(i+1)].

The sample selection described above ensures getting unbiased estimators for the parameters of interest in this survey.

Training of field researchersThe field researchers as well as district coordinators for the

survey will be given at least one day training workshop on the questionnaire. The objective of the training will be:

Discussing the problems faced the field researchers in the Pilot study.

Standardizing the understanding of the field researchers to the questionnaire.

Giving the field researchers instructions about how to communicate with the staff in the schools they visit and how to respond to questions from students while filling the questionnaires.

Data collection The questionnaire will be self administered by the

students.

One field researcher will be present at the time the

students are filling their questionnaire to answer

questions that might be raised by students.

The field researcher will introduce the objectives of the

study for the students. Moreover, the field researcher

will assure the students on the confidentiality of the

collected. The students will be informed that the data

will be used for statistical tabulation only.

Non of the teachers will be present in the classroom at

the time the students are filling their questionnaires.

Data Entry & Data Cleaning

An Access program will be design to reflect

the same image of the questionnaire.

Control and cross-validation rules will be

defined on each of the variables in the

questionnaire.

Data cleaning will be done to ensure that the

data matrix is reliable and ready for analysis.

Cross-tabulation and cross-validation

analysis will be conducted to insure the

internal consistency of the data matrix.

Data AnalysisAfter data is entered to Access database and cleaned. Data analysis will

be conducted. The following steps will be followed in the analysis:

Transforming the data from Access database to SPSS data using

stat-transfer program.

Merging the three files (Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon) to produce

one file.

Producing basic frequencies for the three countries.

Producing cross-tabulation by (grade, sex, locality, ..) as well as

other background variables agreed upon by the research team.