International Education Survey Results

Ohio’s International Education Advisory Committee (IEAC) asked school administrators (or their designees) to complete a short survey about their schools to take the pulse of international education in Ohio schools.

The online survey consisted of 13 multi-part questions and was available from April 14 to May 5, 2008. It was publicized in the superintendents’ newsletter, the IDES of ODE, the Buckeye Association of School Administrators newsletter, as well as emails to individuals who have participated in international education events and another email to specifically encourage participation by urban districts. A reminder went out to the IDES distribution list during the last week of the survey.

The responses provide information that can be useful to the IEAC. The results need to be interpreted cautiously since a voluntary survey does not yield a representative sample of all schools in Ohio. The software logged 186 attempts to answer the survey with 175 responses that were used in this analysis[1]. Responses came from rural, small city, suburban, and urban schools as well as community (charter) schools, private schools, programs for students with disabilities and career centers.  Responses were not necessarily proportional to the number of students who attend those types of schools in Ohio.

In some cases a central office administrator responded to the survey on behalf of the entire district, in other cases a building administrator responded. In a few cases both responded for the same district so there is some overlapping data. In one school, multiple teachers responded. There is no clear-cut way to identify the most “correct” response in those cases.

The number of respondents to each question varies because respondents chose not to answer every question or some questions did not apply in a particular setting.

With those limitations in mind it is still possible to see some patterns in the data.

Topics were ranked in this order:

  • Culture
  • Arts
  • Language
  • Social or political issues
  • Business/economics
  • Environment
  • Philanthropic projects
  • Employment skills
  • Health

Summary

The survey results are promising. There was wide and varied participation with little evidence of resistance to an international focus. Much remains to be accomplished.

Key ideas include:

1. Responses included in this analysis were those that included an answer to at least one survey question by a representative of a K-12 school in Ohio.