a one-building K–12 school district in a rural community (and yes, they do exist). In these districts, typically there is only one teacher per grade level. What if the findings indicated that the gym teacher, or the English teacher, or the first-grade elementary teacher was disappointed with the administration for its inability to address issues surrounding students with special needs? The researcher would not be able to reveal this specific information for fear of directly violating confi- dentiality. In larger settings, such concerns pose less of a problem. For example, take a large urban school district with many buildings at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels. A researcher could comfortably report that 50% of the first- grade teachers in the district believed that the administration is not meeting the needs of all students. With such a large number of teachers in the district, it would be virtually impossible to trace this finding back to the specific teachers with such concerns. Researchers should always carefully consider the issues that surround confidentiality. See Box 8.1 for a research example.Often students confuse confidentiality and anonymity. Unlike confidentiality, anonymity means that the survey does not require the participants or respondents to provide their names or any information that identifies them in any way (for example, grade level currently teaching, number of years in current teaching posi- tion, name of school building, and such). An anonymous survey is one that contains no demographic information that could be used to identify an individual. Making a survey anonymous may increase the number of surveys that the researcher receives back. In addition, participants are more likely to provide valid information if they believe there is no way that their answers and comments can be traced back to them. While these two benefits are good reasons for using anonymous surveys, they make it impossible for a researcher to follow up with participants to collect further in-depth information or validate what participants have said.
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