SURVEY QUESTIONS

1. Age
2. Race
3. Education level
4. Where did you attend grade school? (urban, suburban, rural)
5. Do you believe that the quality of public education provided is at all determined
by geographical location?
6. Did/do you have access to technology in your classrooms?
7. Did/do you have access to technology outside of school?
8. Which teaching strategy do you believe best supports academic success and
closing the achievement gap?: 1) Encouraging all students and helping them realize the
importance of education or 2) Focusing on students understandings of subjects and
mastery of topics.
9. Do you feel there is an academic achievement gap between students that come
from low-income families and students that come from high-income families? Yes, no,
unsure
10. Do you feel there is an academic achievement gap between Hispanic/ Latino
students and white students? Yes, no, unsure
11. Do you feel there is an academic achievement gap between African American
students and white students? Yes, no, unsure

Summary

The achievement gap is an issue that has been debated over for many years. It is the
idea that due to differences in gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, geographical location,
etc., certain students are at a disadvantage when it comes to learning and advancing to higher
education. In our recent survey, we asked questions that we thought were important in
understanding the significance of the achievement gap. Our survey began with questions
relating to demographics. We asked for age, race, education level, and where they attended
grade school (urban, suburban, or rural areas). We asked these questions because we wanted
to compare the diversity of the people to the answers we received on the questions that are
specifically related to the achievement gap. This is important because everyone comes from
different backgrounds and has differing opinions about this issue.

From the data collected, we discovered that 77.6 percent of people surveyed feel that
the achievement gap could be seen between low-income families and high-income families. The
results also show that people believe the quality of education provided is determined by
geographical location. However, when asked whether or not the achievement gap is visible
between white students and minority students (specifically, African Americans and Hispanic/
Latino students) close to half of the answers were no. This was surprising because our
research suggests that there indeed is a gap between white students and minority students.
Although surprising, this finding could potentially be due to the fact that 89.7 percent of people
surveyed identified as white. Due to the lack of ethnic diversity we may potentially be missing
the opinions of others who might have experienced the effects of the achievement gap
themselves. This could be a reason why the majority of our data shows that people do not think
the achievement gap is present between different ethnicities. On the contrary, we did have a
fairly diverse group based on the people's level of education. From this data, we can infer that
ones level of education does not determine whether or not they are aware or oblivious to the
achievement gap.

Another surprising element was that close to twenty percent of people surveyed were
unsure about the discrepancy between the different groups of students. This created a new
question: How many people are aware of what the academic achievement gap is? This is a
question we believe would be important to ask in further research because of the potential to
educate people on the effects of the achievement gap and how to help close it.

Based on our findings, it is evident that most of the people that participated in the survey
believe that the achievement gap exists. We gather that while most people believe in its
existence, there are different opinions relating to who the achievement gap effects. This is
helpful in our research because it pushes us to think more in depth about the articles that we
have read concerning the achievement gap. While we do not agree with the fifty percent that do
not think there is a discrepancy between different races, we can take this information and further
our research on this topic.