Guidelines in the Administration of the ICT Survey Questionnaire
Before discussing the guidelines on the administration of the ICT Survey Questionnaire, it is a good idea to be reminded of the stages involved in conducting surveys:
Stage 1. Survey design and preliminary planning
Stage 2. Pretesting
Stage 3. Final survey design and planning
Stage 4. Data collection
Stage 5. Data coding, data-file construction, analysis and final report
Stage 1 is where decisions about the purposes or goals of the survey and how best to accomplish them within the available time and resources are made. In this pilot project, the main purpose is to assess the level of use of ICT in education as measured by the proposed indicators. As regards time and resources available, several factors have to be considered such as: the support given by UNESCO for this project, the support to be given by the ministry involved in this project and the commitment of the national government.
Another important question that must be answered at this stage is: Who or what is the population of interest? In this particular pilot test using a survey questionnaire, the following are the population of interest:
- Officials at the Ministry level
- School Heads including heads of non-formal learning centres and centres catering to minority groups and those with special needs
- Teachers in schools
- Students/learners
Another concern that must be addressed is the availability of a sampling frame from which to select a random sample, if the participants involved in this project would opt to do the survey on sampling rather on the population. A sampling frame is the source that includes the population of eligible people or groups for the study. An example is the roster of schools including non-formal learning centres and centres for minority and special groups that the ministry of education would have.
Below are simple sampling procedures that will guide you should you decide to conduct the pilot based on sample.
Simple Random Sampling
Simple random sampling is a method of selecting a sample from a population such that every distinct sample has a chance of being drawn. As an example, let us consider all the Ministry officials as the population for Part 1 of the survey questionnaire. In simple random sampling, every one of the officials has a chance of becoming a respondent to the survey questionnaire. Thus, to make the process easier, a number can be assigned to each of the official, and a series of random numbers is then drawn, either by means of a table of random numbers or by means of computer that produces a table of random numbers. At any draw the process used must give an equal chance of selection to any official in the ministry, and the officials drawn now would constitute as sample. The survey should also be done in places with no computers and Internet connection.
Stratified Random Sampling
Another sampling procedure is the use of stratified random sampling. In this process, the population of units is divided into subpopulations. In Part 2 of the survey questionnaire where the school heads are the respondents, we can apply stratified random sampling procedures. Here, we consider the school heads as our population and we can categorize them into the following sub-populations: by level, e.g. primary and secondary and by type of education, e.g. formal, non-formal, minority groups, and special groups.
Stage 2, pre-testing of the initial decisions is done. The steps involved are the following: preparing the sampling frame and record-keeping forms, and preparing the survey questions and then testing these items to see how well the process is working. Although a sample survey questionnaire has been prepared, it is still best to do a pre-test of the items included in the questionnaire.
Stage 3 - It is here that the data collection methodology and infrastructure should be prepared. After the doing the pre-test, the results should be used to improve the survey design, survey questionnaire and the implementation plan. Pre-testing may also help you decide how much time to allot between follow-up contacts or whether the final contact should be by e-mail, by mail or by telephone. During this stage, final changes should also be made in the sampling plan, the questionnaire, interview-training procedures and materials, data-coding plans, and plans for analysing the data.
Stage 4 - This is the data collection stage and there is a need to monitor the results of the data collection activities. This is also the stage where coding and data file preparation are done. Your technical staff will be able to assist you in determining the most feasible and user-friendly software adequate to answer your specific needs.
Stage 5 includes data coding, data file construction, analysis and final reporting. Coding is the assignment of numbers to the responses given to the survey questions. Coding respondents’ answers to each question will make it easier to look for patterns among variables. Before data analysis begins, the data are checked or “cleaned” to identify and correct coding and data entry errors. In the cleaning process, the coded response to each question or variable is checked for illegal code values, and when possible, for consistency with responses to other related questions. This process takes time normally from a few days to 4 weeks after the last survey questionnaire has been gathered and would also depend on the method of data collection and the complexity of the survey design.