Database

The Voices and Choices Database has been created to allow you to generate a School Health Profile of the health- and school-related needs of students in your school community. This Profile is based on the responses (data) collected by the Student Needs Assessment Questionnaire. Please note that the quality of your School Health Profile will depend on the quality of the data that you submit to the Database. Please try to follow the recommendations provided in Chapter III of the Guide to Implementation to ensure that you collect the best data possible.

To access the Voices and Choices Database, simply complete and fax back the the Letter of Agreement and School Demographics Questionnaire to the Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (CAHPERD) at (613) 523-1206. A representative will process your questionnaire and assign your school a login and password.

If you have questions or require further information about the Voices and Choices: Planning for School Health initiative, please contact the Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (CAHPERD). If you experience difficulties while using the Voices and Choices Database, please contact Health Canada's Division of Childhood and Adolescence.

Using the Voices and Choices Database

The Voices and Choices Database has six features that can be accessed by your school community to complete the needs assessment process and interpret the results.

1. Data Entry Software
2. Upload Link
3. School Health Profile
4. Comparing Your School to Other Similar Schools
5. Comparing Your School Data to National Data
6. Comparing Selected Questions Within Your School Data
7. Voices and Choices Database Login Page

1. Data Entry Software – Data entry software has been created to assist in the needs assessment process. You will need to download and install this software on your computer(s). The software, when installed, looks like an electronic version of the Student Needs Assessment Questionnaire. However, this questionnaire is dynamic. It has been programmed to collect student responses and store this data as a record (one per student) in an automatically generated data file. The data entry software can be used in two different ways depending on how the Student Needs Assessment Questionnaire is administered (see Chapter III of the Guide to Implementation). It can be used by a designated person to enter student responses from the completed paper questionnaires, or by students to complete the questionnaire directly into the software program. Either way, a data file is created – one per computer on which the software has been installed. **Please note that this software can only be used with a PC computer (i.e. IBM compatible) and is not compatible with a MacIntosh environment.

2. Upload Link – Once all of the responses (data) from the Student Needs Assessment Questionnaires have been compiled into a data file (or data files), they are ready to be uploaded into the Database. To upload your data file(s), simply click on the “UPLOAD” link and use the “Browse” function to select the name(s) of the file(s). Try to ensure that you know where your data file(s) have been saved on your computer (i.e. on what drive and in which folder) before you begin this process. It will save you time on-line. The uploading process may take a few seconds or a few minutes depending on the size of your data file(s).

3. School Health Profile – The School Health Profile is key to your Voices and Choices initiative and can be accessed once you have completed the needs assessment process and uploaded your data into the on-line Database. This report presents a detailed picture of your school community based on your students' responses to the questions in the Student Needs Assessment Questionnaire. The report is organized according to the five Voices and Choices paths and describes how students feel about their health, what they would like to do to improve it, what's stopping them, and how the school can help them. It includes easy-to-use charts and graphs (broken down by grade and gender) to illustrate these results and provides useful suggestions about how to interpret them (see Chapter IV of the Guide to Implementation). By using the Profile's table of contents, you can move easily through the different parts of the report to find the information that you need to begin developing your School Health Plan (see Chapter V of the Guide to Implementation). To access your School Health Profile, simply login and select “School Health Profile”.

4. Comparing Your School to Other Similar Schools – You can compare your student needs assessment data with the data from other schools of similar size, same province and same community type.  No schools are ever identified during these comparisons. Only aggregated (or grouped) data is used. You can make these comparisons as you view your School Health Profile report on-line. To access these comparisons, simply login and select “School Health Profile”.  Using the table of contents, go to the question of interest in the profile, locate the box entitled “Compare your school to other schools of:” and select the type of comparison you wish to make. The on-line database will then perform the necessary calculations and produce a graph to which you can compare your school's data.  This information can be accessed for all of the questions in the Student Needs Assessment Questionnaire.

5. Comparing Your School Data to National Data – You can also compare your student needs assessment data with the data from the Health Behaviours in School-Aged Children (HBSC) Study. The HBSC data result from a nationally representative sample of students in Grades 6 to 10/Secondary 4 in Canada. Comparable HBSC data is available for 32 of the Voices and Choices questions.  For your convenience, this data has been organized by Voices and Choices question according to the layout of the School Health Profile report. Each Voices and Choices question has been linked to the appropriate HBSC question and table, broken down by grade and gender. To access the national data, simply login and select “HBSC National Data”. Scroll down to the Voices and Choices question of interest and select the underlined HBSC table.

6. Comparing Selected Questions Within Your School Data – Finally, you can examine your student needs assessment data more closely by requesting cross tabulations for a limited number of questions. This enables you to compare responses between selected key questions. The questions selected for cross tabulations were chosen based on the five Voices and Choices paths and what a school can do to help. The data is presented in tabular format and organized in a separate report. To access the cross tabulations, simply login and select “Supplementary Report: A Comparison of Selected Questions”.

7.