Data Collection and Surveys

Attitudes to School Survey

In 2024, the Attitudes to School Survey will be offered to students to complete online from 6 May to 14 June 2024.

ORIMA Research Pty Ltd has been contracted by the department to administer the online collection of the Attitudes to School Survey. ORIMA Research will contact schools with instructions on administering the survey and they will provide support throughout the survey period via a telephone hotline and email.

For technical queries and support regarding the Attitudes to School Survey, please contact ORIMA Research on 1800 654 585 (toll free during business hours), or by email: atoss@orima.com

For any participation or survey-related queries, please contact the department by email: school.surveys@education.vic.gov.au

All schools must participate in the Attitudes to School Survey, providing the opportunity for students from Year 4 to Year 12 to complete the survey. The survey provides data that is invaluable in understanding the student perspective of their school and to improve the schooling experience.

Data collected includes how students feel in relation to their school, their learning, peer relationships, resilience, bullying, health and wellbeing, physical activity, and life in general.

Survey preparation and administration

• Ahead of the survey collection period, schools will be emailed a link to access a secure administration site for the survey. This portal will include the resources schools need to participate in the survey, including template communications to parents/carers and student log-in details.
• To participate, schools will nominate a survey coordinator to interact with the survey portal on behalf of the school.
• The coordinator’s role is to download the student log-in details from the portal and provide teachers with these details for their students.
• The survey coordinator will manage opt out requests from families and ensure these students do not participate in the survey.
• Schools will schedule survey sessions for all students to complete the survey in class time during the survey collection period.
• Coordinators will be supported by ORIMA Research through a telephone and email helpline, as well as detailed step-by-step guides.

Supporting students to participate

The Attitude to School Survey is available in a variety of alternative versions to enable all students to participate, including:

• accessible version (a shorter survey that uses simplified language)
• accessible short scale (a shorter survey that uses visual aids and fewer response options)
• Auslan translation (to support deaf and hard of hearing students).

Please see the Attitudes to School Survey framework (DOCX) for the questions asked in the standard, accessible and accessible short scale versions of the survey.

Survey completion at schools – on-site learning

• The supervising teacher will provide the class with the secure survey link.
• The supervising teacher will give each participating student their unique survey log-in.
• Students log-in to the secure site and complete the survey online.

School results

Schools can access their survey results from the secure survey portal following the end of the survey collection period.

School support

ORIMA Research will provide support for schools throughout the survey period through a telephone helpline and an email support option. Details will be provided to schools when they are given their portal link.

Schools are also encouraged to use their health and wellbeing coordinators to provide support to students, if needed. For advice and support for student health and wellbeing, please contact the school’s regional office.

Communication to parents/carers and students

Principals must ensure that the school community are notified about the survey prior to commencement, and that families are aware that student participation is voluntary.

Principals must also inform parents/carers that they can opt out of their child participating in the survey before the survey commencement date, by sending a refusal of consent email to the school stating the student’s name and year level:

• The school’s survey coordinator will action this request to ensure those students do not complete the survey.
• Parents/carers must be advised that department provides ORIMA Research with student names and other details (please see further below) in order to facilitate this process for the school and broader survey administration.

Sample text for parents/carers and/or the school newsletters, and an information and consent letter for parents/carers, will be provided for schools in the survey administration portal.

The survey framework will be available on the Resources tab from the start of Term 2. Additional survey information such as sample questions will also be available on the survey administration portal and schools may distribute these to parents/carers.

Data privacy

• All information collected will be handled in accordance with the Privacy Data and Protection Act 2014 (Vic), the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic) and the Public Records Act 1973 (Vic).
• The department provides personal information including student name, year level, date of birth, CASES21 ID, gender and school to ORIMA Research to allow them to administer the survey, including to facilitate the opt out process that is run by schools.
• The full student sample list containing such information is deleted by ORIMA research annually, at the conclusion of each cycle of the project.
• ORIMA creates a unique login for each student to complete the survey, which will be shared with students by their teacher. The student login is an assigned identifier that may be used to link data by the department for statistical and research purposes only. The login does not contain the student’s name or CASES21 ID.
• The department receives the final survey data file from ORIMA Research. Personally identifiable data will not be recorded in the survey response file to ensure the confidentiality of student responses is protected at all times.
• Please note that consistent with the above legislation, there are instances where we may be required by law to share information students have provided. For example, where there is a threat to a student’s health and safety. For more information and support, please contact the department’s Privacy team at: privacy@education.vic.gov.au
• The survey results will be reported back to schools throughout the survey period. All survey data that is made available to schools are for groups of students only so that no individual student can be identified.
• Individual student responses are not shared with schools and data suppression rules are used for schools with low student numbers per year level, so that no individual student can be identified.
• For more information, please refer to the Schools’ privacy policy.

Get advice

For any participation or survey-related queries, please contact the department by email: school.surveys@education.vic.gov.au