Survey on Individual Safety in the Postsecondary Student Population (SISPSP)

Detailed information for 2019

Status:

Active

Frequency:

Every 5 years

Record number:

5279

The goal of the Survey on Individual Safety in the Postsecondary Student Population is to obtain an accurate picture of the nature, extent and impact of inappropriate sexual and discriminatory behaviours that occur in a school-related setting.

Data release - September 14, 2020 (Sexualized behaviours); September 15, 2020 (Discriminatory behaviours); October 8, 2020 (Canadian Military Colleges)

Description

The Survey on Individual Safety in the Postsecondary Student Population (SISPSP) is a survey sponsored by the Department for Women and Gender Equality (formerly Status of Women Canada), in response to the federal government's Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence.

This survey measures the prevalence and nature of the following types of self-reported victimization among postsecondary students:

- Inappropriate sexual behaviours;
- Harassment based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity; and
- Sexual assault

Survey results will be used by government, academics and not-for-profit organizations to not only better understand the nature, extent and impact of inappropriate behaviours in the postsecondary school setting, but also to study students' perception of their personal safety in a postsecondary school setting. These data could help inform policies, laws and programs designed to improve postsecondary students' well-being.

There is also a secondary component to the survey which measures the prevalence and nature of inappropriate sexual and discriminatory behaviours within the Canadian Military Colleges (CMC) located in Canada. This component of the survey is sponsored by the Department of National Defense (DND).

Reference period: Lifetime and past 12 months preceding the interview date

Collection period: February 1 to July 15, 2019

Subjects

  • Crime and justice
  • Crimes and offences
  • Education, training and learning
  • Victims and victimization

Data sources and methodology

Target population

1) General postsecondary student population

The target population for SISPSP is persons who are attending or have attended a public or private postsecondary school, college, CEGEP, or university in one of the 10 provinces. In all provinces except Quebec, the survey targets persons between 18 and 24 years old. In Quebec, the survey targets persons who are 17 to 24 years old. Age is calculated as of December 31, 2018.

Persons who reside in the territories are not covered by the survey.

2) Canadian Military Colleges student population

The target population for SISPSP-CMC is students who attended the Royal Military College of Canada or the Royal Military College Saint-Jean in the fall of 2018. All full-time and part-time students, both on and off campus, regardless of age, are included.

Faculty and staff are excluded.

Instrument design

The questionnaire was designed based on research and consultations with key partners and data users. Qualitative testing, conducted by Statistics Canada's Questionnaire Design Resource Center (QDRC), was carried out with respondents in three cities, in three provinces. Questions which worked well and others that needed clarification or redesign were identified. QDRC staff compiled a detailed report of the results along with their recommendations. All comments and feedback from qualitative testing were carefully considered and the questionnaire was revised accordingly.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.

1) General postsecondary student population

The survey frame for SISPSP was a person-based list frame, constructed from the 2016 Census. In all provinces except Quebec, persons aged between 18 and 24 years old were included on the frame. In Quebec, persons aged between 17 and 24 years old in Quebec were included on the frame. Age was calculated as of December 31, 2018. Persons who resided in the territories at the time of the Census were excluded. The frame did not have any up-to-date information on whether the individual is attending or has attended a post-secondary institution; all persons in the targeted age range were included.

The frame was stratified by province. A stratified random sample of 54,000 persons was selected from the frame.

2) Canadian Military Colleges student population

The frame for this component of the survey was a list of students provided by the Royal Military College of Canada and the Royal Military College Saint-Jean. It included both full-time and part-time students who were attending a Canadian Military College in the fall of 2018. This component of the survey is a census: all individuals on the student list were included in the sample.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2019-02-01 to 2019-07-15

Responding to this survey is voluntary.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

For the general population, the data collection procedure for the Survey on Individual Safety in the Postsecondary Student Population was an online electronic questionnaire with telephone follow up. Computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI) were conducted by Statistics Canada regional offices to follow up with non-respondents from March 1st, 2019 until June 30, 2019.

Invitation letters were sent to respondents' mailing address with a secure access code to access the questionnaire. Some respondents were also sent an invitation email which contained a link to the survey. Questions in the survey application (age and sex) were used to determine that the correct respondent was selected if the respondent was sent an email invitation. Mail and email reminders were sent throughout the collection period to increase response rates. Tracing was conducted for respondents who were not able to be reached by mail or by telephone.

For the CMC population, data collection was done exclusively online using an electronic application. Email invitations and email reminders were sent to respondents' CMC email address.

Proxy interviews were not permitted for this survey due to the sensitive topic. The respondents were provided the choice of responding between French or English.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

Processing used the Social Survey Processing Environment (SSPE) set of generalized processing steps and utilities to allow subject matter and survey support staff to specify and run the processing of the survey in a timely fashion with high quality outputs.

It used a structured environment to monitor the processing of data ensuring best practices and harmonized business processes were followed.

Edits were performed automatically and manually at various stages of processing at macro and micro levels. They included validity, consistency and flow edits. A series of checks was done to ensure the consistency of survey data. An example was to check the respondent's age versus the number of years attending a postsecondary school. Flow edits were used to ensure respondents followed the correct path and fix off-path situations.

The flow editing carried out by head office, ensured that the data set followed the flow of questions in the questionnaire, using a 'top-down' strategy.

A "Valid Skip" code is used to indicate that a question was not asked to a respondent based on an answer to a previous question. For example, if a respondent indicated that they were not a student in the past 12 months, follow up questions pertaining to the past 12 months should be skipped automatically by the application. In processing, all of these follow up questions would receive a "Valid skip" value (6, 96, 996, etc.).

A "Not Stated" code is used to indicate that a respondent left a question blank. It differs from a "Valid Skip" in that the question was shown to the respondent and they left it blank, rather than the question not being shown at all. In addition, if a question was left blank, which then led to follow up questions, the subsequent follow up questions are also set to blank. To illustrate, if the respondent did not respond to a question asking if they experienced sexual assault, all follow up questions pertaining to this type of sexual assault would be set to "Not Stated" (9, 99, 999, etc.).

Error detection was done through edits programmed into the self-response electronic questionnaire (r-EQ), as well as into the collection management system (CMP) that was used to conduct interviews by telephone.

The data capture programs allow a valid range of codes for each question and built-in edits, and automatically follows the flow of the questionnaire. Head office edits performed the same checks as the collections systems as well as more detailed edits.

Imputation

No imputation was performed for this survey.

Estimation

The principle behind estimation in a probability sample is that each unit in the sample "represents", besides itself, several other units not in the sample. For example, in a simple random 2% sample of the population, each unit in the sample represents 50 units in the population.

Weighting is a process which calculates, for each record, what this number is. This weight appears on the microdata file, and must be used to derive meaningful estimates from the survey.

1) General postsecondary student population

The following steps were performed to calculate sampling weights for SISPSP:

- Design weights were generated by computing the inverse of the probability of selection.
- The weights of the persons that responded to the survey were inflated to account for the persons that did not respond to the survey. Information from the Census frame was used for the adjustment.
- The weights were calibrated so that the sum of the weights match demographic population counts.
- Persons who never attended a post-secondary institution in one of the ten provinces are out-of-scope for the survey. These persons were removed from the weighting process after calibration.
- A final weight adjustment was performed for in-scope persons who only answered part of the questionnaire.

2) Canadian Military Colleges student population

The following steps were performed to calculate sampling weights for the SISPSP-CMC:

- The SISPSP-CMC is a census; therefore the design weights were one for all individuals on the survey frame.
- The weights of the persons that responded to the survey were inflated to account for the persons that did not respond to the survey. Information from the frame was used for the adjustment.
- The weights were calibrated so that the sum of the weights for each campus match the number of students on the frame by sex and by age group.

Quality evaluation

Quality assurance measures were implemented at every collection and processing step. Measures such as recruitment of qualified interviewers, training provided to interviewers for specific survey concepts and procedures, observations of interviews to correct questionnaire design problems and instruction misinterpretations, procedures to ensure that data captures are minimized and edit quality checks to verify the processing logics. Data are verified to ensure internal consistency and they are also compared to previous survey results to ensure historical continuity.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.

Data accuracy

Since the SISPSP general population is a sample survey, all estimates are subject to both sampling and non-sampling errors. The SISPSP-CMC is subject to non-sampling errors.

Non-sampling errors can be defined as errors arising during the course of virtually all survey activities, apart from sampling. These include coverage errors, non-response errors, response errors, interviewer errors, coding errors, and other types of processing errors.

The response rate for the SISPSP general population was 36.9%. The response rate for the SISPSP Canadian Military college population was 28%. Non-respondents often have different characteristics from respondents, which can result in bias. Attempts were made to reduce the potential nonresponse bias as much as possible through weighting adjustments.

Sampling error is defined as the error that arises because an estimate is based on a sample rather than the entire population. The sampling error for SISPSP is reported through 95% confidence intervals. The 95% confidence interval of an estimate means that if the survey were repeated over and over again, then 95% of the time (or 19 times out of 20), the confidence interval would cover the true population value.

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