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1998 Massachusetts School Health Education Profile Report

Survey Methods

The Massachusetts School Health Education Profile Survey (SHEP), conducted in the Spring of 1998, included three questionnaires: (1) a School Principal Survey to assess the status of health education from an administrative perspective; (2) a School Policies and Programs Supplement, included with the Principal Survey, to assess the prevalence of certain school health-related programs and policies; and (3) a Lead Health Education Teacher Survey to assess health education at the classroom level from an instructional viewpoint. The lead health education teacher in each school (usually the health department chair or the most senior health education teacher) was identified by the school principal. The School Principal and the Lead Health Education Teacher questionnaires have been administered every other year since 1994; the School Policies and Programs Supplement was included for the first time in 1998.

All 681 Massachusetts public schools with at least two of the grades 6 through 12 were contacted for survey participation, and reminder letters were sent to schools that had not returned completed surveys. Five hundred seventy-seven principals (85%) returned the Principal and the Programs and Policies Surveys; 571 health teachers (84%) completed the Lead Health Teacher Survey. These high response rates allowed the data to be statistically weighted to adjust for minor differences between responding schools and Massachusetts secondary schools as a whole. Because of the high response rate and statistical weighting, the results of the 1998 SHEP can be considered representative of health education in Massachusetts middle, junior/senior, and senior high schools.

In order to distinguish differences in health education that might vary according to grade level, the data were separated by the CDC into three categories: (1) middle schools (including all 313 schools with a highest grade of 9 or below), (2) junior/senior high Schools (49 schools with a lowest grade of 8 or below and a highest grade of 10 or above), and (3) high schools (210 schools with a lowest grade of 9 or above).

Most of the findings are aggregated across grades for each school. Some data are also reported by grade or school category. Because there are relatively few junior/senior high schools and because there is a wide variation of grade combinations in this category, most findings focus on overall results, high school results, and middle school results.

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