RESOURCES AND EXAMPLES

Data that have been summarized into a summary statistic. Aggregated data secures confidentiality to the respondents and is safer to share.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

A survey is anonymous when the data cannot be associated with any individual research participant, not even by the researcher or survey administrator. Anonymous surveys do not collect any identifying information, including IP addresses or emails of the participants.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

A survey is confidential when the data gathered from participants could potentially be connected to or identified with a specific individual but that information is available only to the survey administrators. Identifying information will not be included on any report or publication about the survey. A survey is confidential if it asks for items such as mames, email addresses, or IP addresses but only the researchers have access to this data.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

The unit-record or row-level data that is not summarized and can be viewed by each individual response or respondent. Disaggregated data often included personally identifiable information and is not always safe to share.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

When two separate questions are asked in one item. These should be avoided as it is unclear what part of the item respondents are responding to.

Example: "How useful were the assignments and feedback?"

Reference: Designing Surveys for Evaluations and Research. EdTech Books.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that gives parents the right to access their child's educational records. When the child turns 18, all rights regarding education records, such as amending records and disclosing personally identifiable information, transfer to the student.

Reference: What is FERPA? US Department of Education.

A qualitative research method in which a group of individuals are asked questions by a researcher in an informal manner, where discussion about the survey topic is the main goal. Focus groups are often a good first step to ensuring survey items, stems, and response options reflect the language of the target population.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal law that protects sensitive health information from disclosure without a patient's consent.

Reference: HIPAA Enforcement. US Department of Health and Human Services.

An administrative body established to safeguard the rights and welfare of human research subjects involved in studies conducted at UMD. Any research surveys and some operations surveys will require review by UMD's IRB.

Reference: Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and Protection of Human Subjects in Clinical Trials. U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

The item poses the question or presents a statement.

Example: "In general, I feel as though I belong at UMD."

Reference: Designing Surveys for Evaluations and Research. EdTech Books.

The stem identifies the part of a survey question that outlines the subject or issue being addressed.

Example: "Indicate how much you agree/disagree with the following:"

Reference: Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods. Sage Publications.

An item that indirectly or unintentionally influences respondents to answer in a specific way.

Example: "STEM programs are more difficult than other programs."

Reference: Designing Surveys for Evaluations and Research. EdTech Books.

An item that uses carefully selected words to imply or steer toward a desired answer, often unintentionally. These types of items should be avoided so as not to receive biased responses.

Example: "The new program is a waste of university resources."

Reference: Designing Surveys for Evaluations and Research. EdTech Books.

When the respondents who refuse to take part in a study or survey are systematically different from those who do choose to participate. This can also occur when respondents do not finish the study or survey.

Reference: Web-Based Survey. Encyclopedia of Social Measurement.

Refers to any representation of information that allows the identity of the individual to whom it pertains to be reasonably inferred, either directly or indirectly.

Examples: Names, UIDs, social security numbers, addresses.

Reference: Guidance on the Protection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII). U.S. Department of Labor.

A preliminary study designed to test the procedures and measurements of the survey or study in preparation for the larger project. A pilot study is tested on a small sample of the intended population and may provide useful information about how respondents interpret the items.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

The group of people that a survey represents in its assessment of attitudes, behaviors, or characteristics. Often, a population is specific to the research questions or goals of the survey. For instance, for a survey evaluating the cleanliness of residence halls, the population would be all students living in residence halls. A sample of those students (see Sample) can be surveyed.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

A measure of how effective a statistical test is at yielding confident results.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

Selecting a sample of participants from the population in a randomized way so that each respondent has the same fixed probability of being selected for the study.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

The response options provide a way for the respondents to answer the question or indicate the degree to which they agree with the statement.

Reference: Designing Surveys for Evaluations and Research. EdTech Books.

The survey response rate is the percentage of people who completed the survey out of the total number of people that were invited to take the survey. It is calculated by dividing the total number of respondents by the sample size.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

Instruments provided to a respondent for expressing a response to a question.

Example: Strongly agree to strongly disagree.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

A sample is a smaller subset of individuals that come from the whole population.

Example: First-time freshmen are a sample of the entire UMD student population.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

The process of systematically collecting data from a sample of people to create quantitative measures that describe the characteristics of a larger population to which the people belong.

Reference: Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer Nature.

A study with participants selected from the desired population that collects data about their opinions and beliefs about a topic(s). Information is typically collected through an interview or questionnaire.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

A phenomenon where individuals are tired and uninterested in completing surveys because of being sent many invitations to participate in various surveys. Respondents thus lose their motivation to complete surveys, provide less thoughtful answers to questions, or prematurely terminate participation.

Reference: Survey Fatigue in Questionnaire Based Research: The Issues and Solutions. National Library of Medicine.

Collecting evidence from multiple sources to support your hypothesis and conclusions. The data can be collected from different forms of research from different groups of people and at different times.

Reference: APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.