How are schools involved in ACWP?

A large number of primary and secondary schools (about 480) across all jurisdictions and school sectors will be randomly selected and invited to participate and complete the survey in their schools for either the field trial or main survey stage. The extent to which the findings of this study can be considered nationally representative depends on a high response rate from the sampled schools. The success of ACWP is dependent on the good will of Australian students, parents and schools like yours and the project team would be very grateful for the generous participation of your school and students if selected. The survey will ask students about their family and economic circumstances, their relationships with family and peers, their health, school life, communities, and aspirations. The survey will focus on students from Years 4, 6 and 8 and by participating you will:

• Represent Australian schools in terms of student wellbeing;

• Provide important information to policy makers, service providers, schools and researchers about young people’s wellbeing in Australia and;

• Contribute to the design of effective services for young people’s healthy development.

The Field Trial (Term 1 2014)

Approximately 24 schools in New South Wales and Victoria were invited to participate in the field trial of the quantitative survey in Term 1 of 2014. This will result in about 300 children in Years 4, 6 and 8 piloting the online instrument which has been designed to be child friendly and mindful of the range of skills and abilities within these age groups. Analysis of the pilot survey responses by ACER and the research team at UNSW and Flinders University will be used to finalise the survey.

The Main Survey (Term 3 2014)

For the main survey, all students from the identified year levels in 460 primary and secondary schools (Government, Catholic and Independent) across all jurisdictions will be sampled. The sample will be selected to provide sufficiently large samples of young people from the six groups of specific interest to the ACWP, namely Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, culturally and linguistically diverse young people, young people with disability, young people in regional and remote Australia, economically disadvantaged young people, and young people in out-of-home care. This will enable us to understand the diverse views and experiences of young people in these groups. The survey will be administered in schools under the direction of teachers and school staff with the support of ACER and the research team where needed. The main survey phase is scheduled for Term 3 2014.

What will participating schools be required to do and what are the benefits?

Participating schools will be asked to support the research team to publicise the survey among students and their parents/carers. Appropriate informed consent will be obtained from parents and young people prior to their being asked to respond to the survey, which will be interactive and of about 20-30 minutes duration.

Schools will be responsible for the administration of the survey in their school and support from the ACWP project team will be provided in various ways during this time. This may include the provision of extra support from ACER to assist the participation of individual students with specific needs. The administration of the survey will not require any specific test conditions, and it will be possible for students to complete the survey iteratively, logging in and out as required.

Participating schools will receive a school summary report with their results in terms of the wellbeing of students in the middle years in their school. It is hoped that the research will provide important information about how young people in ‘the middle years’ understand their own wellbeing and how their experiences and needs differ across different groups.

Reports from each phase of the ACWP project are also available on the Findings/Resources page of this website.

Further information

For further information about any aspect of survey participation of schools, students and their families, please contact ACER.