PRACTICAL GUIDELINES – TRACER STUDY IN KYRGYZSTAN, pilot ex. (April – June 2014 )

Table of content

1. Definition of tracer study2. Team composition3. Fieldwork stages4. Tracer study questionnaire5. Fieldwork preparation

5.1 Database of graduates’ contacts5.2 Data collection methods5.3 Preparation of the online data collection tool in Survey Monkey5.4 Training of interviewers in case of telephone survey

6. Fieldwork implementation6.1 Fieldwork process and follow-up6.2 Data entry in Survey monkey (post or telephone survey)

7. Data analysis and presentation7.1 What is a database7.2 Data analysis in survey monkey7.3 Data presentation

Annex 1: Questionnaire

1. Definition of tracer study

Tracer studies describe a standardised survey of graduates from educational institutions, which takes place some time after graduation or the end of the training. The subjects of a Tracer study (…) commonly include questions on study progress, the transition to work, work entrance, job career, the use of learned competencies, current occupation and bonds to the university. (Schomburg, 2014)

Most importantly, the survey helps to answer questions on what happens to graduates after leaving education institution; whether they get employment afterwards and of what type, whether they use the skills and knowledge acquired in their education institution and skills and competencies demanded in the labour market (Schomburg, 2014).

Main characteristics

Target groupGraduates of an education institution

SampleAll graduates

TimingNot less than 6 months after graduation

Data collection method(s) Online self-administered questionnaire Postal self-administered questionnaire Telephone interview

Basic requirements before the tracer study is launched … Established team, which will work on data collection and analysis Database of graduates’ contacts Internet connection (at least) MS Excel and MS Word

2. Team composition

The team which will work on the tracer study should consist of at least 2 people. Ideally, they should have some basic knowledge on data collection and analysis. At the same time, they should be able to use computer with Internet, MS Excel and MS Word.

3. Fieldwork stages

4. Tracer study questionnaire (see ANNEX 1)

5. Fieldwork preparation

5.1 Database of graduates’ contacts

To start the fieldwork, you need to have an updated database of the contacts of your graduates. This means that you know how to contact them, e.g. via internet, telephone, address of their parents. The database should contain several information that allow you to track your graduates.

List of information to be collected:

Full name of a graduate + identification number Specialisation of a graduate Address of a graduate Address of parents Telephone number E-mail address of a graduate

All information should be stored, preferably in Excel (see below).

Picture 1: The screenshot of the database of graduates’ contacts

Preparation phase

Contact database of graduates

Decision on the data collection method(s)

Training on the use of Survey Monkey (data collection and data entry)

Fieldwork

Sending-out the questionnaires

Follow-up of the non-responding graduates

Data entry (telephone and post questionnaires)

Data analysis and interpretation

Training on the analytical tool in Survey Monkey

Data analysis and interpretation of the

collected data in each institution

5.2 Data collection methods

Three data collection should be considered, which can be combined to reach a high response rate:

the collection of responses online - graduates will be sent an email through Survey Monkey system and will be directed to the site where they can directly fill the questionnaire.

! What needs to be done? Enter e-mail addresses into the Survey Monkey system (see further) and the questionnaire will be sent to the email address of your graduates.

the collection of responses via telephone - graduates will be contacted by an interviewer using a phone. This method will require that the interviewer(s) know well the questionnaire and are trained to be able to perform the interview. Afterwards, the data must be entered into Survey Monkey system (see the Section 6.2).

! What needs to be done? Train your interviewer(s) who will then call your graduates to collect responses. Make sure you know how to enter the responses into the Survey Monkey system.

the collection of responses via post/graduates filling a paper questionnaire - graduates will be asked to fill a paper questionnaire (they can be contacted by post or may be asked to fill the paper questionnaire once still at school – for example, in the first part of the Phase 3 when collecting the information on the education process only. Afterwards, the data must be entered into Survey Monkey system (see the Section 6.2).

! What needs to be done? Print the questionnaires and distribute to your respondents. Make sure you know how to enter the responses into the Survey Monkey system.

5.3 Preparation of the online data collection tool in Survey Monkey

5.3.1 Where is the questionnaire?

Each school has one file (please, keep the name of the school in the survey title) – see below.

Picture 2: The screenshot of the Survey Monkey – where to see your questionnaire

5.3.2 How to edit a questionnaire?

IMPORTANT!

You need to edit the questionnaire before sending it. First, you need to adjust the text introducing the questionnaire and then the first question on study programmes, where you should add the list of existing specialities at your school, from which the graduates can choose.

How: click “Design survey” – “Edit” – change what you want to be changed – “Save”

Pictures 3a-c: How to edit a questionnaire – introductory text of the questionnaire

Pictures 4a-b: How to edit a questionnaire – adding study programmes

5.3.3 How to make a copy of a questionnaire?

If you want to make a copy of the survey - for example, you want to create a testing version proceed as follows:

How: click “Create survey” – “Copy an existing survey” – Choose a survey you want to copy - Give a name to the new survey (always include the number of your institution) – “Continue”

Pictures 5a-b: How to copy an existing questionnaire

5.3.4 What is the collector and how to send the survey to the email addresses of your respondents?

Once your questionnaire is ready, you can proceed to the data collection.

Picture 6: Data collection in Survey Monkey

The data are collected through collectors. Automatically, the WEB LINK collector is created for your survey (this, however, you use only for the telephone/post interviews where you enter the responses yourself – see the Section 6.2).

Picture 7: Web link collector

To send the questionnaire to the email addresses of your respondents, you proceed as follows:

How: click on - Create a collector – choose “Email” – add respondents’ emails – add email message – check settings: e.g. make sure that the email addresses will be stored to track who responded and who not etc. – send questionnaire to your potential respondents

Pictures 8a-e: Email collector

Tip: If you want to protect a survey, you can send a password to each respondent that can be used to open the questionnaire.

Picture 9: How to enter passwords

5.4 Training of interviewers (telephone interviews)

In case you want to collect information on the phone, make sure that you train your interviewer(s). They must:

understand the content and the purpose of the questionnaire know how to introduce the survey as well as your institution, which intends to collect the data know the structure of the questionnaire and know how to use the existing filters, i.e. where it

is necessary to skip some questions for some of the respondents. Hint: the interviewers can directly enter the responses into the Survey Monkey while interviewing the respondents. This can be done through opening Internet and using the WEB LINK collector of the Survey Monkey system (see the Section 6.2)

must be attentive and read aloud all the instructions connected with the existing questions.

6. Fieldwork implementation

6.1 Fieldwork process and follow-up

Once the questionnaires are sent, we must monitor how many of respondents reply and how many do not. After two weeks form the launch of the survey, you must re-contact the respondents who have not replied once again, e.g. you can phone them or you can send the reminder to their email addresses with the use of the Survey Monkey system.

Pictures 10a-b: How can you monitor the progress with survey monkey?

How: Click on the “Email collector”

Picture 11: How can you send the reminders to the emails of your respondents through the survey monkey?

How: Click on the “Email collector” - see the row “un-responded” – click on ”send reminder email”

6.2 Data entry in Survey monkey (post or telephone survey)

If you collect the responses through telephone or with the use of paper questionnaires, you must enter the data into Survey Monkey yourself.

How: click on - Create a collector – choose “web link (first option)” – change settings: allow for multiple responses and within the field “survey completion options”, click on “loop to start” – save settings!

Pictures 12a-c: Use of Web link for manual data entry - preparation

Then, using just this link and just copying it into a browser, several people can use it to add data manually. It is not necessary to log in into survey monkey!

Pictures 13a-b: Use of Web link for manual data entry - implementation

7. Data analysis and presentation

If you want to check your results, the tables and graphs are automatically created for you. You can see everything here:

Pictures 14 a-b: Data analysis