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Survey Tools |
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GSA Network/PFLAG Olympia Survey: Safe Schools Coalition encourages Gay-Straight Alliances and other student groups to survey your peers. Use this survey to gather data for educating administrators, staff, parents and the student body about what is really happening at your school. Page 1 of this document has tips for using the survey which is on page 2. The survey was created by PFLAG-Olympia board member; Kaleigh Costello, and was inspired by GSA Network It is posted on the Safe Schools Coalition website with permission. http://www.safeschoolscoalition.org/FreeHelpSurveyingYourSchool.pdf (pdf format)
Measuring sexual orientation in adolescent health surveys: Evaluation of eight school-based surveys.
Elizabeth M. Saewyc, Ph.D., R.N., P.H.N., Greta R. Bauer, Carol L. Skay, Linda H. Bearinger, Michael D. Resnick, Elizabeth Reis, Aileen Murphy Journal of Adolescent Health, Volume 35, Issue 4, Pages 345.e1-345.e15 (October 2004)
This excerpt from the Discussion section of that article may help those designing surveys of the demographics of sexual diversity:
Obviously, the best option is to include all three dimensions [attraction, behavior, and self-labeling] in adolescent health surveys, as each one provides different, equally useful information. However, if students are already burdened by the number of items, three dimensions may be hard to justify. To effectively measure the highest priority health concerns, the best choice would include behavior plus either self-labeling or attraction. Of the last two, attraction (depending on wording) is probably the most stable measure over time, because “labels” for nonheterosexual identities have changed several times over the past century, and vary cross-culturally [27]. These studies indicate that orientation items, although sensitive questions, are no more sensitive or more likely to be skipped than other sexual risk behavior questions. This finding can reassure researchers and school administrators who are concerned that such items might be too sensitive for most students to answer, and who worry that nonresponse rates will render the results inaccurate and of limited use.
See the article for suggestions about how to actually word items.
Some 2007 results from Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Surveys re: sexual orientation, gender(s) of partner(s) and anti-LGBTQ harassment are available online
