Information Letter to Teachers: A Survey of Youth Development in Schools
Dear Teachers,
We are interested in determining areas of need and strengths in aspects of youth development in an effort called the Malaysian Child & Adolescent Well-being (MCAW) Study. Briefly, a survey would be administered to students in 1 or 2 class periods in July/August 2003. Prior to this, information will be sent to parents to ensure that they are informed of this study and consent to their children’s involvement. All information collected will be strictly confidential. From data obtained, we will provide a comprehensive report to the school principal for future planning in meeting the needs of your students.
We have the permission of the Ministry of Education, your school principal and the relevant institutions at Pennsylvania State University.
We appreciate your efforts in assisting us in this survey through:
1. informing your classes that this will happen in the next few weeks.
2. in distributing parent information letters through each student in your class
3. in ensuring the class attendance list is available just before the survey. This will be returned to you at the end of the survey.
To standardize the research across all schools, we recommend the following:
1. The survey will be given out and fully administered by our research team in each classroom. All questions that students may have in relation to the survey will be answered solely by the research team .
2. Teachers are welcomed to be present during the survey and to assist in classroom management that ensures a harmonious and comfortable environment where students feel motivated to participate in this survey. In the event a student is unable to follow instructions of the research team, the student will be immediately referred to the teacher present for appropriate addressing.
3. For the most part, teachers present in the classroom are not required to actively partake in any part of the administration of this survey. In fact, we encourage teachers to feel free to attend to any work they may have during this time.
Through MCAW, we hope to understand how adolescents can grow into health and contributing adults in society. This knowledge will then be used in proposing effective approach in promoting positive youth development to interested institutions in Malaysia as well as in international cross-cultural research on adolescent development.
Thank you for efforts.
Brendan J. Gomez & Patricia Ang
Research Investigators, MCAW
Prevention Research Center, Pennsylvania State University
US contact – Tel: 814-862-0896 Fax: 814-865-6004
Add: 402 Marion Place, University Park, PA16802, USA.
Malaysian Child & Adolescent Well-being Study 