Survey Methods

The Florida Industry Certification Study examines the ways districts and schools in Florida support high school students in earning industry certifications. The Career and Professional Education (CAPE) Act is a state program, but schools and districts make choices about how they implement it. We conducted a statewide survey to give Florida educators and administrators the opportunity to describe certification practices and policies in their school or district. They also shared their thoughts about the benefits of and challenges to having students earn industry certifications in high school.

The experiences of Florida's districts and schools can inform other states that are considering implementing similar policies.

Who responded to the survey?

We developed two separate surveys with slight differences specific to school or district-level respondents. All Florida school districts were invited to participate, as were traditional, vocational, and charter schools with at least 10 students in membership and 5 students in 12th grade.

Of Florida’s high schools that were invited to participate, 399 out of 524 schools did (76 percent). Survey respondents primarily included Principals or Assistant Principals (46 percent) and career and technical education teachers or leaders (31 percent). The rest were other counselors, teachers, or staff.

Of Florida's traditional districts that were invited to participate, 54 of 67 districts did (81 percent). Survey respondents primarily included Directors of CTE (54 percent) and Directors of Curriculum (9 percent). Other respondents were District Leaders, Program Coordinators, or Instructional Administrators.

How did people respond to the survey?

This web-based survey was administered between March and August of 2018. Each person received an email with the link to the survey and unique log-in credentials. Respondents could complete it at their convenience throughout the data collection window.

How did you add information about the school environment?

We wanted to find out whether certain school factors—poverty level, locale, and past certification rate—influenced the way districts and schools thought about industry certifications and the way they implemented this program. To get information about the poverty level and locale, we used 2014-15 data from the National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data Public School Universe (CCD).

Poverty level:

The CCD has information about the numbers of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and we calculated the percentage of eligible students in each school. We used National Center for Education Statistics definitions¹ to classify schools by poverty level.

• High-poverty schools: more than 75 percent of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch
• Middle-poverty schools: 25 to 75 percent of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch
• Low-poverty schools: Less than 25 percent of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch

Locale:

The CCD has information about each school's locale. The reported locales were:

• City
• Suburb
• Rural

Past certification rate:

Florida's Department of Education gave us data about which students had earned certifications. Here, we followed a cohort of students who were in 9th grade in 2013-14 and calculated the percentage of them who earned certifications by 2016-17, when they should have been in 12th grade. 2016-17 is the year immediately before the survey. Then, we classified schools in this way.

• Low certification rate schools: Less than 10 percent of students earned certifications
• Middle certification rate schools: Between 10 and 25 percent of students earned certifications
• High certification rate schools: More than 25 percent of students earned certifications

Are participating schools different from nonparticipating schools?

Seventy-six percent of eligible schools responded to the survey, and 24 percent did not. In interpreting survey results, we want to be sure that those who took the survey represent voices from all Florida schools and districts. Thus, we wanted to find out whether those who did not respond differed somehow from those who did.

We tested whether schools that took the survey differed from those that did not in each of these categories by seeing whether differences were statistically significant, or too large to attribute reasonably to chance factors.

School characteristic	Total eligible schools	Total participating schools
LOCALE
City	136	106
Suburban	258	185
Rural	130	108
SCHOOL POVERTY LEVEL
High-poverty	83	59
Middle-poverty	383	300
Low-poverty	58	40
PAST CERTIFICATION RATE
Low certification rate	151	113
Middle certification rate	237	181
High certification rate	136	105

Locale seemed to be associated with the likelihood of responding to this survey — suburban schools had lower response rates, and town/rural schools had higher response rates than would be found if respondents were assigned by chance. Perhaps those in towns/rural schools see a more direct relevance to earning certification, and fewer suburban school leaders do.

Yet, we found no statistical difference in response rates based on students’ rates of earning certifications in the past. Schools with low past certification rates were as likely to take the survey as those with high past certification rates. Study results will include the perspectives of those who have not had as many students earn certifications.

Additionally, we did not find differences in survey participation based on the school's poverty level. Study results will include the perspectives of staff in high-poverty schools as well as those in more affluent schools.

Survey results

We have prepared a series of issue briefs on topics such as school strategies for promoting industry certifications, teacher supports in this program, perceived costs of the program, and challenges to the program.