I got a very interesting email from my university that they sent out to everyone. It contained a voluntary survey which said it was being used to gather data for administrators to use in order to understand the needs of their LGBT students and improve things for them. It started out asking about things like birth gender, gender identity and sexual orientation (it was impressively specific too, there were tons of options to choose from) then later moved on to asking about sexual assault, if LGBT students feel safe, if they trust the administrators enough to report abuse from students or teachers and stuff like that. In the fine print of the survey I found something rather concerning though. It said the survey would be anonymous unless there was a group of 5 or more people whose data is linked, showing a trend. If a trend is discovered the anonymity of the linked people would be removed and all of the extremely personal data (going as far into detail as how many sexual experiences and what kind of sexual acts a person has done with each gender) would be attached to your name and studied to try to find what caused the link, like maybe all 5 people saying a teacher was abusive to them are in the same class so the teacher should be fired kind of thing. Considering many of the people filling out the survey thinking it's anonymous might be in the closet, I can't imagine they would be very happy with complete strangers reading the details of their sexuality and experiences, as well as information about whether they've been sexually assaulted by family, friends, or another student, and knowing exactly who they are because it's linked to their name and student ID picture. Would you fill out a survey like this? What are your thoughts on the potential for extremely personal secret information to be shared with people like this in an effort to improve overall life for LGBT students?
How big is your uni? Five sounds small. I would fill it out as long as my actual name or ID wasn't on the final study.
I would fill it out. I don't think I would attend a university that I didn't trust to maintain confidential information. I'm always asked about my sexual orientation in my firm's employee satisfaction survey. I always answer.
I'll do the survey - even if its not anonymous its not like any of the people reading it would know me so it wouldn't bother me much. You don't have to answer all the questions either you can just skip the ones that are too personal if you want to.
Pretty much the reason they have that is to handle something serious. So, like how you said, if five students all say in this survey that a specific professor assaulted them...that needs investigated. The university needs to deal with the professor and realize what they can do to better help their students. Yes, some people may be in the closet but more likely than not those people would just be asked to talk to the Dean of Students or someone, not have their names announced to the public. The anonymity applies to giving information and that information being used for a study. If a concerning trend pops up, the concern takes first priority while still maintaining a level of anonymity to the general public (aka, only certain people would know). I’d do it, it makes sense to me. I also work with college freshman and sophomores so I know that confidential can’t always mean that. There are certain things that have to be reported if they’re told to you even if told in a confidential setting.
Personally I'd fill it out. But I could see how someone who had negative encounters or experiences might not or would skip those questions.
I suspect what they're really talking about boils down to mandatory reporting requirements. For example, if you have five students saying that a given student raped them, or a professor harrassed them... they'd have liability if they didn't do something about it. And given that the survey itself almost certainly went through the school's institutional review board, there are likely protections in place for the circumstance where anonymity is removed. If you really wanted to know, you could contact the office that originated the survey, ask if it went through the IRB, and if so, ask if you could see the IRB submission documents.
