The best practices for survey research are descriptive, exploratory, and explanatory. When developing a questionnaire it is important to ensure that the questions are clear and avoid bias. There needs to be a specific purpose the research is targeting followed by a goal. It is important to decipher which questions and question style is appropriate for the research and what targets your respondent the best. Having short items and relevant questions that are easy for respondents to answer. The survey that my class created was targeting the question of, what needs do parents have that if met would help increase parent involvement in education? This is important for my class to gather this information because it allows the parents of HeadStart to educate us about what their needs are. Identifying what barriers and challenges the parents are facing when it comes to finances, language, and educational involvement. It is important to create normalcy in education going outside of the classroom and into the home as well.
The dependent variable for this research is parents’ involvement. To measure my dependent variable I am using the survey question “How involved do you feel in your child’s education on a scale of 0-10?” This survey question is able to let parents rank how involved they feel. This is important for our classes’ needs assessment. The independent variable for this research is income. To measure my independent variable I am using the survey question “Does financial stress prevent you from being involved in your child’s education?” This survey question allows parents to take into consideration how their finances can interfere with their involvement within their child’s education. These are good and well written survey questions because they are not double barreled. They are short and easy to answer questions while also targeting the bigger goal and purpose of the needs assessment.