So I did a research paper

It's not the first time I've used the shooting for a school assignment. First time was in 2002(-ish) for my public speaking class in community college =P

One of my classes is a beginning research class, and we had to do a correlative research project on a topic of our choosing. My research focused on this question: "Does proximity to school violence have long-term effects on mental health?" To put it bluntly, are kids who were in the library or cafeteria more messed up than the others? No research had been done on students this far out from a shooting, so I was curious. (I had to exclude myself from the study for obvious reasons; I also excluded faculty and those who were injured.)

I put together a survey on Survey Monkey, put out the word on a few support group boards focusing on shooting survivors, and waited. I had to throw out a lot of surveys because they didn't fill out the Trauma Screening Questionnaire which was part of the survey, but in the end I did have 26 that I could use. I asked questions about gender, what year of school they were in, where they were when it started, whether they knew anyone who was injured or killed, the TSQ, then an open-ended question where they could say how else the shooting has affected them that wasn't previously addressed in the survey.

Long story short, after crunching the numbers, I didn't see any correlation at all. Location in the school didn't seem to matter when it came to the current level of trauma they still face today. (Though, both me and my teacher agreed that actually having library survivors take the survey would've been a big help -- I had nobody from there participate. A larger sample would've helped, too.)

It just made me aware of just how much my classmates are still suffering today, speaking to the need for long-term counseling.

Very interesting study.

Was this only for Columbine survivors? Did any other library survivors respond to the study?

It was only for Columbine survivors, and not a single library survivor took the survey.

Thats quite interesting. Did anyone reject the survey?

I had to toss a lot because they'd fill out the demographic information but not the trauma survey questionnaire itself. Even though I made it clear that was what I needed =P Out of 47, I could only use 26.

Any reasons on why they didn't fill out the trauma? Just too hard or something like that?