What Happens With Local Survey Findings? A Study of how Adolescent School Surveys are Disseminated and Utilized in Swedish Schools

Abstract

This paper aimed at examining the barriers to and facilitators of disseminating and utilizing the results of a local Swedish school survey. Interviews with 21 school district managers/principals were performed. Results showed that dissemination and utilization of local survey data appeared as two interrelated processes. With those processes, various barriers and facilitators were mentioned. The barriers and facilitators were not merely the opposites of each other; instead they qualitatively differed from each other depending on what phase in the process the manager/principal referred to. The results also showed that the dissemination phase was both a prerequisite for and interwoven with the utilization phase, e.g. dissemination efforts were important for how the survey results were utilized.

Keywords:

• adolescent health
• research utilization
• school survey
• school managers

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karina Nygren

Karina Nygren, Department of Social Work, Umeå University

Urban Janlert

Urban Janlert, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Division of Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå University

Lennart Nygren

Lennart Nygren, Department of Social Work, Umeå University.