Practical Considerations in Weighting Survey Results From Principals Across States

• In Event: Important Considerations for Survey Data

Abstract

Principals impact teacher retention and student achievement at their schools, and it is vital to gather information from them about their work, ideally via systematic data collection. This proposed session describes several key practical considerations that arose in statistically weighting the results from recent surveys of 832 responding principals from all 50 states in an attempt to derive generalizable inferences about the full population of U.S. principals. Researchers’ deliberations focused on potential adjustments for sample selection and nonresponse bias, including how to best account for school poverty across states (given varying policy and program rules).

Authors

• Reino Makkonen, WestEd

• Matthew Gaertner

• Karina Jaquet, WestEd