Anna Selbrede

IR I-3-10G/T
05/23/16
Part I
Topic
1. Public Reaction to the HCPSS Wellness Policy. My goal is to determine current
public opinion on the wellness policy as well as awareness and knowledge of it
Citation for Survey
2. Part hand created with some questions from:
Healthy Eating, Active Communities, Student Nutrition, and Physical Activity Survey. Center
for Weight and Health, University of California, Berkeley. 8 August 2014.
Audience for survey
3. Parents, students, staff, and administration throughout Howard County
Distribution Plan
4. Posted to Clarksville Happenings and Columbia Live on Facebook- this was
shared by multiple parents to their own pages. Sent link to Health/PE teachers and GT
Teachers for students and staff. Sent to PTSA.
Part II See Attached
Part III
Overall, the data may be biased because so many more females took it than males, but
background research did not find and correlation between gender and knowledge of the policy,
so it may not be very important. The survey received 255 responses, which makes it a pretty
accurate representation of the community. However, the majority of the responses were students
and a very small number was staff, so the data is skewed toward student opinion. The survey also
does not ask where the respondent is from, so the survey may be mostly River Hill students but
that is not known from answers.

1. The first question asked on the survey provides background demographics of gender
identification. Later this may be correlated to knowledge. Overall, this background shows that
the rest of the survey may be very biased because nearly three fourths of total respondents were
female while only a quarter were male.

2. This question will lead to different sections depending on the response. It also shows the
overall demographics of the sample. The pie chart to show the distribution highlights the very

large amount of student respondents and the very small staff response size. Therefore the
researcher may eliminate staff due to unreliability.

3. This question uses the generally recognized wording to determine race of respondents. Overall
it seems to reflect the demographics of Howard County, making the sample representative as a
whole. These demographics could also be used for correlations with knowledge later.

4. This question determines basic demographics of students and how well acquainted they are
with the school system. Most of the students, being high schoolers, had been in HCPSS for 6 or
more years and then have been through the majority of the large changes with the policy. The
smaller percentage that has only been in the system for 2-5 years, will still have gone through the
changes as a result of the more recent revisions, and are likely to have noticed the changes.

5. This graph deals with the grades of each student. They could be correlated later because it
seems like 10th-12th graders are more likely to care about changes because they will remember
high school from previous years, while freshmen may think it has always been like that and they
will not know the difference.

6. This is the first question that does not relate to demographics. It is the basic yes and no of
does the respondent know about the wellness policy. A majority of the respondents did know
about the wellness policy; however it is close to half. With the sheer number of policies and
problems that people in Howard County have to deal with, it makes sense that only around half
would know about the Wellness Policy. Compared to other HCPSS policies, this number
probably proves a higher awareness of the Wellness Policy (although that is not fully evidenced).

7. This question asked the sample that knew about the policy if they had actually read it. A little
less than 25% had read it, which is actually a lot of people.

8. If they knew about the policy but had not read it, this question asked if they had read a
summary. This question finally places each respondent into a category of having a documentbased understanding if they said yes, or a story- based understanding if they said no. Overall, the
majority of respondents who knew about the policy only knew about it from what they had heard
and they had not actually read the policy.

8.1. This graph incorporates questions 6,7, and 8 into a pie-pie chart for another visual
interpretation.

9. This question is the lead-in into a question, It was phrased in this way to prevent bias. It asks
whether they have heard comments of any sort about the policy. A little more than half had heard
some comments, which was a good lead-in for the next question.

10. If the respondent said they had heard comments about the policy, this question asked whether
the comments had been positive, negative or both. Almost 75% of comments had been negative
with around 25% being both positive and negative, and none being solely positive. This question
clearly proves that the general community thinks of the policy as bad.
Overall findings cannot be determined from the data without correlation, however some
basics can be concluded. Around half of the Howard County population knows about the
wellness policy even though they have not read anything about it. The community has heard
either all negative comments, or some positive comments as well about the policy, leading to the
overall negative image supported in the background paper.