AHS Methodology: Sampling

How are schools and students chosen to participate?

McCreary works with Statistics Canada to select a representative sample of students from throughout the province. Trained public health nurses will conduct the survey in classrooms.

Not every student will be asked to complete the questionnaire and participation in the survey is completely voluntary and confidential. No student is required to fill out the questionnaire, and parents or guardians have the right to refuse to allow a student to participate. Formal approval for research ethics has been submitted to the University of British Columbia. In previous surveys, the majority of BC school districts and individuals have chosen to participate in the project.

Participation is Important!

The sample size is designed to be sufficient to provide accurate and reliable results for each of the Province's 16 Health Service Delivery Areas. However, participation by each school selected is critical. If districts or schools, for whatever reason, choose not to participate in the survey, that region may not have sufficient data to produce a report.

"In my years in Education I strongly supported the McCreary assessment; in districts we often had perceptions about student at risk behaviour, as well as perceptions that the vast majority of young people cared significantly about many health issues. The data collected has been used by all of us in the businesses of caring for youth. If we are ever to fully embrace the concept of government ministries, community, and family working on shared planning and service for our children, the starting place is good data. The [survey] is now at the point where trends over time can be observed; that provides us all with the ability to celebrate our successes and plan for areas we need to focus our energies."

Jim Latham
Assistant Superintendent,
School District 33 Chilliwack (Retired)