Using Online Surveys for Evaluating School-based Drug Prevention Programs

Abstract

Background: The primary context for providing substance abuse prevention education to adolescents in the United States has been through schools and other local educational agencies. Federal and state spending for such programs is increasingly being tied to school commitments to monitor such prevention programs and evaluate their effectiveness. Purpose: Over the past decade, access to computers and the Internet has become almost universal in U.S. elementary and middle schools. Our purpose is to outline the potential of Web-based surveys as a data collection tool that can significantly lower program evaluation and monitoring costs and to present preliminary evidence on the feasibility of online survey administration in school settings. Setting: The empirical part of the article draws on input from teachers, administrators, and practitioners responsible for youth drug prevention and evaluation efforts in schools and communities. Subjects: Sixteen focus group participants were recruited from counties in and around the San Francisco Bay area in Northern California. Eight of the participants were district-level prevention coordinators and county-level health administrators who administered State and Federal grants to schools within their counties. The remaining subjects were recipients of prevention funding: school teachers, health educators, and practitioners in youth drug prevention and treatment centers. In addition, telephone interviews were conducted with twenty-five Title IV coordinators and drug prevention specialists from various state education and health departments. Intervention: The article focuses on efforts undertaken in schools to implement and evaluate drug prevention programs, how the use of online surveys can facilitate these efforts, and the feasibility of such methods in school settings. Research Design: Our research design adopted a qualitative approach and included nationwide telephone interviews and in-house focus group discussions over a six-month period. Data Collection and Analysis: Data collection included structured, in-person forty-five-minute interviews and discussion notes. In addition, a short, closed-ended survey was administered to focus group participants for collecting information on their school characteristics (population served, school size, Internet, and computer facilities). Survey data were analyzed with simple descriptive statistics. Findings: The focus group discussions and telephone interviews indicated a high degree of interest in using Web-based surveys for data collection and evaluation of youth drug prevention programs. Access to computers was not viewed as an impediment. Some schools in the Bay area were already using online surveys for assessing teacher performance. Further, states like Kentucky, California, and Wisconsin have already moved to Web-based uniform reporting system that required uploading survey data online. This suggests that Web-based data collection in schools is likely to become widespread. Conclusions: The use of online surveys in classrooms can significantly enhance the evaluation and monitoring capabilities of schools and communities by minimizing the time required for creating and administering surveys and reducing the time required for data processing. As more states move towards a central reporting database, schools and communities are likely to adopt Web-based mechanisms for collecting and reporting program outcomes.