Give students a voice and they tell us some very important things. Our ongoing survey of secondary student experience supports that basic tenet: students have responded with insight, clarity, and thoroughness on a mostly-written-response survey. Of the approximately 3000 students who were asked to take ther survey, more than 94% responded! And of those who responded, fewer than 2% left questions blank or responded with off-topic remarks.

A few caveats are in order:

1. This is NOT a random sample of American high school students. The 8 schools that participated were all in some way clients of or recommended by clients of Authentic Education. The demographics represented here are middle to upper middle class, including two elite private boarding schools.

2. Most students who responded did so in supervised sessions in computer labs. Approximately 16% of students responded outside of school via the Internet.

3. Note that 'least favorite' and 'most favorite' (and some other questions) involve relative terms. It does not mean, for example, that we can conclude that the most favorite is a subject students  greatly like or that the least favorite is a subject that they hate; this was just a relative rank order. However, in looking at the student comments that accompany the selections, it is clear that for the great majority of students the least favorite was, in fact, considerably disliked. (Sample replies to the many constructed response questions will be provided below soon).

More results will be posted soon, including sample student written resposnes in which they explain their choices. If you are interested in using the survey in your school contact me.