Survey and Focus Group Guidance
OIRA provides survey and focus group consulting services to ACC employees, on an as-available basis, to advise you on:
- Planning your surveys and focus groups
- Analyzing the data you collect
Survey planning guidance
If you would like to request a survey consult, please review these guidelines, then submit a consult request.:
- Guidelines for Conducting a Survey
- OIRA Survey Consult Request (ACC employees only)
For focus group training resources, please email [email protected] to request.
Student focus group and interview data should not be analyzed by AI tools. Even without names, the unique combination of a student’s program, life challenges, and specific feedback can make them identifiable. Once a student’s story is fed into AI, the college loses the ability to protect that student’s anonymity. Students participate under a specific informed consent statement with the college. Our current statement does not permit the disclosure of raw narratives to third-party processors. Even if included in future consent language, the use of these tools remains risky as it fundamentally compromises the college’s role as a safe and responsible steward of the student voice. Finally, AI models lack an understanding of our specific community and the unique challenges our students navigate. Human-led analysis ensures we capture the nuances of the student experience without averaging out the insights that inform better support services.