Parents’ Experiences Regarding School Meals during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic required not only the reorientation of learning to remote form but also a change in the form of state-funded school lunches. One of the forms of school catering allowance was food packs, which obligated parents to prepare a warm lunch for the pupil from products included in food packs. As the responsibility for providing a warm lunch for the pupil was transferred to the parents, it was important to understand the parents’ experience. The survey was used to gather parents’ experiences of school catering allowance received during the pandemic using survey administration software—Google forms; 5166 respondents from different regions of Latvia took part in the survey. The school catering allowance in the form of food packs (83.7%) can be considered successful as over 70% of respondents rated it as positive, giving a rating of 7 (good) or above. Parents from Vidzeme and Latgale had the most positive experience with food packs. The parents appreciated the support they received, stating that it provided a certain sense of security during the crisis. Parental dissatisfaction was related to the composition of food packs, lack of local products and unacceptable products, such as canned meat and fish.

Impact of Activity Monitoring on Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, and Body Weight during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Decreases in individuals’ physical activity and increases in sedentary behavior and bodyweight have been reported during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study assessed the ability of physical activity monitoring, which may promote physical activity and discourage sedentary behavior, to mitigate these negative outcomes. An evaluation of university samples (N = 404, 40.5 ± 15.4 years) of self-reported physical activity, sedentary behavior, and bodyweight prior to the closure of campus due to the pandemic in March of 2020 and again at the time of the survey administration (May–June 2020) during pandemic-related restrictions was performed. Participants also reported whether they did (n = 172) or did not (n = 232) regularly use physical activity monitoring technology. While physical activity was unchanged during the pandemic (p ≥ 0.15), participants significantly increased sitting by 67.8 ± 156.6 min/day and gained 0.64 ± 3.5 kg from pre-campus to post-campus closure (p < 0.001). However, the use of activity monitoring did not moderate these changes. In conclusion, while physical activity was not affected, participants reported significant increases in sedentary behavior and bodyweight during the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes occurred regardless of whether participants regularly used physical activity monitoring or not.

STUDENT WORKBOOK USE: DOES IT STILL MATTER TO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF STUDENTS’ LEARNING?

One effort that teachers can do to improve their learning process is by developing learning resources for themselves and their students. Teachers can use student workbook (LKS) to be used as a source of learning for students. A student workbook that contains material summaries can help students more effectively understand the materials. Student workbook containing a variety of practice questions is believed to affect the effectiveness of student’s learning. This research aims to analyze the effects of using student workbook (LKS) towards the effectiveness of students’ learning. This research was conducted to see students' perceptions of the role of using student workbook (LKS) towards the effectiveness of student learning. To collect data, this study used a questionnaire distributed to 24 students using a survey administration application, consisting of six questions related to the students' perceptions of the role of using student workbook (LKS) towards student’s learning process. After all, participants had completed the questionnaire, the data were then categorized based on relevant findings. The findings reveal that the use of student workbook gives beneficial impact on students’ learning since it can be one of the sources of learning besides the teacher’s explanation. It also makes students easier in understanding the materials with simple content and various practices. In the end, this research hopefully can be useful as a reference or guide for future researchers who want to conduct similar research on the use of student workbook (LKS) as one of the resources in the teaching process.

Community-Driven Approach for Youth Health Survey Administration and Data Utilization

Large-scale population surveillance systems may fall short in capturing localized data specifically from rural communities. A three-tiered engagement approach is implemented by survey administrators that focuses on supporting communities and schools to better understand the health of youth locally and identify the most effective interventions. This community-driven approach to survey administration addresses the locality gap and evolves a statewide youth survey to better meet the needs of the state and local communities, as well as alleviates survey burden in schools through a unified, strategic approach.

Transitions From Telephone Surveys to Self-Administered and Mixed-Mode Surveys: Aapor Task Force Report

Telephone surveys have been a ubiquitous method of collecting survey data, but the environment for telephone surveys is changing. Many surveys are transitioning from telephone to self-administration or combinations of modes for both recruitment and survey administration. Survey organizations are conducting these transitions from telephone to mixed modes with only limited guidance from existing empirical literature and best practices. This article summarizes findings by an AAPOR Task Force on how these transitions have occurred for surveys and research organizations in general. We find that transitions from a telephone to a self-administered or mixed-mode survey are motivated by a desire to control costs, to maintain or improve data quality, or both. The most common mode to recruit respondents when transitioning is mail, but recent mixed-mode studies use only web or mail and web together as survey administration modes. Although early studies found that telephone response rates met or exceeded response rates to the self-administered or mixed modes, after about 2013, response rates to the self-administered or mixed modes tended to exceed those for the telephone mode, largely because of a decline in the telephone mode response rates. Transitioning offers opportunities related to improved frame coverage and geographic targeting, delivery of incentives, visual design of an instrument, and cost savings, but challenges exist related to selecting a respondent within a household, length of a questionnaire, differences across modes in use of computerization to facilitate skip patterns and other questionnaire design features, and lack of an interviewer for respondent motivation and clarification. Other challenges related to surveying youth, conducting surveys in multiple languages, collecting nonsurvey data such as biomeasures or consent to link to administrative data, and estimation with multiple modes are also prominent.

Sensitivity of self-reported noncognitive skills to survey administration conditions

Noncognitive skills (e.g., persistence and self-control) are typically measured using self-reported questionnaires in which respondents rate their own skills. In many applications—including program evaluation and school accountability systems—such reports are assumed to measure only the skill of interest. However, self-reports might also capture other dimensions aside from the skill, such as aspects of a respondent’s situation, which could include incentives and the conditions in which they complete the questionnaire. To explore this possibility, this study conducted 2 experiments to estimate the extent to which survey administration conditions can affect student responses on noncognitive skill questionnaires. The first experiment tested whether providing information about the importance of noncognitive skills to students directly affects their responses, and the second experiment tested whether incentives tied to performance on another task indirectly affect responses. Both experiments suggest that self-reports of noncognitive skills are sensitive to survey conditions. The effects of the conditions are relatively large compared with those found in the program evaluation literature, ranging from 0.05 to 0.11 SDs. These findings suggest that the effects of interventions or other social policies on self-reported noncognitive skills should be interpreted with caution.