Measuring client satisfaction with public education II: comparing schools with state benchmarks

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Client satisfaction evaluations in public schools revealed significant differences between parents and students.
• Satisfaction levels also varied meaningfully across different types of schools, necessitating tailored comparisons.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide school-specific comparison reports against state benchmarks for client satisfaction.
• To identify and visualize differences in satisfaction levels between individual schools and comparable benchmark groups.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Rasch modeling to establish state benchmarks for endorsing 20 Likert-scale items on the School Opinion Survey.
• Calculated school satisfaction levels by assessing the ease with which school samples (parents/students) endorsed survey items.
• Developed Parent/Student Satisfaction Graphs to visually represent Rasch-modeled differences between school and benchmark item endorsements.

Main Results:

• Significant and meaningful differences in client satisfaction were identified between parents and students.
• Variations in satisfaction levels were also observed across different school types, impacting benchmark comparisons.
• Rasch-modeled graphs effectively illustrated school-specific satisfaction levels relative to state benchmarks.

Conclusions:

• Comparative analysis using benchmark data is crucial for understanding school-level client satisfaction.
• Tailored reporting, including graphical representations, aids in interpreting satisfaction data for school improvement.
• The methodology allows for nuanced comparisons, even providing global metrics for very small schools.