Embedded Files
The student survey I did at the end of the run of this project is likely one of the most important ventures I went on. It let me see a sample of how the students of Shadow Mountain High School percieved their required reading assignments in general, even if it might have been a bit biased due to the nature of the survey being volunteer-based.
As a first question, I asked how old the person taking the survey was. This is important to check beforehand to gauge how their opinions may differ based on grade level.
Secondly, I asked "When you're assigned a book for school, how much of the reading do you typically do?" Around a third answered that they did read all of the book they are assigned.
About two thirds of the responses stated that they objectively enjoyed reading, either when reading for school or reading for leisure.
Opinion Poll!
Opinion Poll!
While it may be hard to make out the information on the bar graph to the left, what I can tell you is that the majority of students agree that required reading is a chore. While they may also say that it's important for education, the general opinion skews negative.
There were also options to put in your own opinions, which yielded various interesting results that mainly elaborated on a topic I had already brought up. For instance, "I like reading depending on the book" was an opinion that was stated frequently with different wording.
People also talk of how they dislike the way reading is taught to them, such as being forced to do certain assignments or just a plain "the more I read the more I feel my life rots away."
The Most Popular Response
The Most Popular Response
For the question above, the most popular grouped response with six responses (which is a large group considering how many combinations there were with the original question) is pictured to the right.
We see that even though students hold the opinion that required reading is good, at the same time they don't like how they experience it in school. This is valid and the reason that I did this survey -- to see if situations like this would occur. The response example to the right shows my theories in action, and would provide a framework to help create something new. Students aren't necessarily unwilling to learn required reading, but the way it is done is tedious currently.
Above are just a sample of the 61 responses I received in the additional comments section that told me more about the survey taker's experience with required reading. A lot of the answers expressed conflicted feelings about the subject, which can be seen in the disparity between the choice answers above as well. Some also take into account the experiences of their peers, which helps me get a wider range of opinions indirectly (since not everybody wrote in the additional comments section).
Overall, the student survey was a great way to see how real people interact with the system they're in and what their thoughts are about how it should be changed or how they are unhappy with it. See my video for other looks into the answers on this survey!
Page updated
Report abuse