Contact Rate vs. Response Rate

When surveys are conducted, TSF2 users with the Conduct Survey user role place phone calls to special education leavers with the goal of reaching everyone on their list. Each call is referred to as a contact attempt. You may need to make several contact attempts before you reach a respondent.

Contact Rate-phone icon, Response Rate-checklist icon

After repeated attempts, you may not be able to reach a respondent at all. Or, you may reach someone, but they're not willing to answer the questions. The contact rate and response rate help us track the percentage of leavers who were contacted and the percentage who responded to the survey.

Contact rate: percentage of people who answered the phone and the caller was able to establish a connection.
Response rate: percentage of former students or designated family members who answer the Post-School Survey questions.

The contact and response rates are the same if every former student on your list responds to the survey questions (100% contact rate, 100% response rate). They’ll start to vary (and decrease) if former students can't be reached or decline to participate.

The response rate is especially important to keep track of, as it impacts OSPI's Determination Requirements and helps measure how well the data represents the overall population of special education leavers.

OSPI’s Determination Requirements

70 percent

Washington’s criteria for meeting determination level 1 requirements is a response rate of 70% or higher. Learn more about Washington’s criteria for calculating annual Determination Levels for school districts.

CCTS works to support all districts in meeting or exceeding that goal of a 70% response rate, because that number is important in terms of data analysis. Higher response rates mean more accurate and representative data.

Representativeness of the Data

A targeted survey response rate of 70% or higher is a helpful benchmark for ensuring that the data collected throughout the survey is representative of the outcomes for all Washington special education leavers for that survey year.

To measure representativeness of state-level data, CCTS uses a calculation tool from the National Technical Assistance Center on Transition: The Collaborative (NTACT:C). NTACT:C's Response Calculator lists nine categories for measuring representativeness: Specific Learning Disability, Emotionally/Behaviorally Disabled, Intellectual Disability, All Other Disabilities, Female, Minority, ELL and Drop-out.

Washington state typically gathers representative data from all groups except leavers who dropped out of school. Students who dropped out (didn’t receive a diploma) continue to be under-represented in our statewide data. A low response rate for students who did not graduate means less information about their outcomes. Not having that information makes it challenging to know how those students could have been better supported when they were in school.

Improving Response Rates

Before students exit high school:

Collect contact information.
- Use CCTS's Post-School Survey Student Contact Form (PDF) or create your own.
Review the Post-School Survey Student and Family Guide.
- Post-School Survey Guidance for Students and Families page on the CCTS website includes a list of frequently asked questions about the survey.
- Let students know what the survey is, why it’s done, and what kind of questions they can expect.
- Share the most recent post-school outcome data from your district to give them context.
Download and customize an informational flyer.
- Post-School Survey Guidance for Educators page on the CCTS website includes a Word document in both English and Spanish that you can customize.
- Share the information with students and their families/caregivers.

4-6 weeks prior to the survey:

Send an email reminder so they know to expect your call.
- After the students have left school, try sending an email reminder a few weeks before you plan to call.
- You can download and customize Post-School Survey Digital Postcard - English/Spanish (PPT).
- Confirm that you have the best number and schedule a time for the phone call.
Have someone who knows the student conduct the survey.
- Former students (and their families/caregivers) are more likely to feel comfortable sharing information with someone they know (such as a teacher, counselor, paraeducator, or other employee from the school who had a connection with that student).
- If someone with a connection to the former student is not available to conduct the survey, consider saying that you're calling on behalf of the person they know.
Make contact attempts on different days of the week at different times.
- Be sure to vary the day and time of your calls to increase the likelihood of reaching them.
- The TSF2 will allow you to log up to five contact attempts, but you can call back as often as you want to try and reach someone (you can capture any additional contact attempts in the Comments section of the survey).
Utilize your community and online resources to update your contact information.
- If the contact information you have is out of date, try using social media or other local connections.
- You’ll still need to call the former student to conduct the survey, but these other channels may help establish contact.
- If you’re talking with other community members about a former student, be sure not to reveal their disability status at any time.

Viewing Response Rates in the TSF2

Once the survey opens, response rates can be viewed on the District List and School List pages in the TSF2.

Next: TSF2 Demos - View Survey Response Rates