Teachers' Say About Smokefree
Teacher Participant Information Sheet

You are invited to participate in this study which aims to find out what teachers think about smokefree issues, such as the law that made all schools/kura/and early childhood centres (ECC) smokefree from 2004. This study is funded by the Ministry of Health. The research is being carried out by Dr. Marewa Glover, Donna Watson, Dr. Judith McCool, and Dr. Chris Bullen from the School of Population Health, University of Auckland, and Dr. Brian Adams from the National Heart Foundation.

Why are we doing this study?

Teachers work with children and young people every working day from pre-school to post-graduate level.  Yet, there has been no nationally representative surveys asking you (teachers) for your opinion on the Smoke-Free Environments Amendment Act (2003) and its impact on you. Nor have you been asked for your thoughts on teaching children about smoking or other policies and interventions designed to prevent children from taking up smoking!

Better late than never – we want to know what you think.  We believe your opinions need to be understood and considered by those who write policy and design smokefree interventions.  We could not survey all 90,000 teachers, so just 2,000 teachers have been randomly selected and this should give a fair spread across the country. To make sure that we find out what Māori teachers think too, we have over-sampled from the Māori roll. We want to hear from the widest range of teachers: teachers who smoke, teachers who don’t smoke, Māori, Pacific, Indian, Pākehā, men and women, new and old teachers, past and present teachers, primary school teachers, Catholic school teachers and kura kaupapa kaiako. Your participation is important.

There are no wrong answers, you are not obliged to answer every question in the questionnaire, and your responses are completely anonymous. Please also note that no-one at your place of employment knows you have been invited to participate in this study.

Why are we inviting you to do this questionnaire?

Your name has been randomly selected from a subset of the electoral roll of voters who listed their occupation as “teacher.”  We realise the electoral roll may be out of date and you may not be currently employed as a teacher. If you have worked as a teacher in the last 5 years then you may have experienced the changes brought about by the Smoke-Free Environments Amendment Act and we would like to hear from you about how it may have affected you. Even if you don’t think this survey is relevant to you, we would still like you to return the questionnaire so we can account for all the invitations we sent out. Everyone who fills out and returns the questionnaire is eligible to go into a prize draw.

Do you have to take part in this survey?

No, your participation is entirely voluntary. However by taking part in this survey you could contribute to knowledge that may influence the health and well-being of other New Zealanders.

What is involved and how long will it take?

Participation involves completion of one questionnaire by September 30th, 2008*, either online at www.yoursay.org.nz, or you can complete the paper copy enclosed with this Information sheet and return it in the self-addressed envelope provided, or if you would prefer to give us your answers by phone please call Donna Watson (d.watson@auckland.ac.nz) on (09) 373 7599 ext 89207, or Dr. Marewa Glover on 0800 285 284. In each case the questionnaire is the same, only the method is different. You should only complete the questionnaire using one of the methods.
It is estimated that the questionnaire will take up to 10-15 minutes to complete depending on, for example, the method you choose, and how many of the questions apply to you. The online questionnaire is likely to take less time than the paper copy because it will automatically miss out questions that are not relevant to you based on your responses.

Everyone who submits the questionnaire is offered the opportunity to enter a grand prize draw to win an Air NZ Mystery Break. To be counted in the draw for this and other prizes, put your prize entry number on your questionnaire. Your prize entry number is linked to our mailing list of names and addresses. As we receive returned questionnaires, the prize entry number will be checked against the mailing list, so we know who is eligible for prizes. This will also stop us from sending you a repeat questionnaire or reminder notices.  The first 200 people whose questionnaires we receive with their prize entry number on it will automatically be eligible to receive either a double pass to a Sky City cinema, a $20 Warehouse voucher, or a smoke-free/auahi kore merchandise pack.

The prizes will be posted out as returned questionnaires are received. The grand prize winner will be drawn on October 3rd, 2008*, from all returned entry forms, and winners will be notified by mail.

*Please note that the closing date for the grand prize has been extended to 31st October, and the winner will now be drawn on  3rd November, 2008.

What about privacy?

Prize entry numbers will be added to the mailing list by a research assistant (who will be required to sign a confidentiality form). When questionnaires are returned, the researchers will give a list of prize entry numbers to the research assistant handling the mailing list. At no time will any identifying information be seen with the questionnaire. In this way we can ensure the responses to the questionnaires are anonymous.

Any quotes or citations from the questionnaire used in presentations, reports or publications arising from this research will be anonymous with any potential identifying details removed or changed. For example, we would not say, “a 30 year old Samoan woman working in a small area school in Rawene said…” in case even this amount of information inadvertently enabled readers to guess who this was.

All returned hard-copy questionnaires will be stored in a locked filing cabinet at the University of Auckland, School of Population Health for six years and then destroyed using the University document destruction service. All computer records will be password protected. The information will not be kept for use in any future research projects.

Research findings

Copies of reports or publications arising from the research will be supplied to the key informants who were consulted about the study design. The study results should be available on our website for you to download (www.yoursay.org.nz) after January 2009.

Contact persons

Should you have any concerns or complaints arising from your participation in this research you may contact Dr Marewa Glover or Associate Professor Peter Adams (Head of Department), through the Department of Social and Community Health, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, phone (09) 373 7599 extn. 86538.

For any queries regarding ethical concerns you may contact the Chair, The University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee, The University of Auckland, Office of the Vice Chancellor, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142. Telephone 09 373-7599 extn. 83711.”

Approved by the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee on 11 June 2008 . Reference Number 2008 / Q / 027.

Thank you for taking the time to read about this study.

This information is repeated on the first page of the survey. If you have received an invitation to do the survey, and you have already read this information, please scroll to the end and click “Next Page”.