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Tips for Creating Surveys:
A survey should be like a conversation. Start with the casual "small talk" questions, progress to the more direct questions, and finally, add personal questions (demographic.)
Define a clear attainable goal for your survey.
Why do you want to send out a survey?
What is your demographic?
How many respondents will you need to get a good cross-section?
When is the best time to distribute the survey?
Don't let your survey get too long.
higher completion rate
more thoughtful responses
Focus on using more closed-ended questions with pre-populated answer choices
quantitative: structured and statistical; results are objective and conclusive
multiple choice or checkbox questions
If you include qualitative, open-ended questions, limit it to 1 or 2 at the end of the survey. You can also use a focus group for qualitative questions.
Remember that it doesn't have to be quantitative OR qualitative. You need both.
Don't ask leading questions (putting your own opinion in the question prompt)
Example: Debbie and Carl are having a cookout and need to know what people want to eat so they send out a survey:
Debbie's question: Do you want to have someone kill a defenseless animal, skin it, grab some of it, add preservatives to it, and force me to inhale its death fumes while I cry silently because it reminds me of all my animal farm friends from when I was a child?
Carl's question: Do you want to support local American farmers in these troubled economic times by grilling up a traditional American juicy burger?
Both questions are biased and leading. Click here to read an article about biased questions.
Keep your answer choices balanced
example 1: unbalanced answers
very helpful
helpful
neither helpful nor unhelpful
example 2: balanced answers
very helpful
helpful
neither helpful nor unhelpful
unhelpful
very unhelpful
Asking questions with absolutes can hinder your reliability.
example: Do you use formative assessment every day?
Don't ask double-barreled questions.
Don't ask two questions in one.
Example: How would you rate x and y?
Do you need a N/A or Does Not Apply answer to a question?
Remember that different types of people might be taking your survey. If your questions apply to classroom teachers and you are a secretary taking the survey, you might need a N/A.
Save personal questions for last
Don't forget to add "prefer not to answer" as a choice when necessary.
Clarify potential misunderstandings
Use words- not numbers. A Likert scale question is much easier for respondents to answer than a 1-5 scale. If necessary, avoid a 5 question Liker scale so that your answers won't primarily end up in the middle.
Always preview your survey before you send it. Even better, send it to someone and have them test it.
When you plan your survey, will you use this over time? If so, be sure your questions are ones that will stand the test of time so that you can compare data from one period o time to the next.
The strength of the data you collect is determined by the way you create your form.
Example 1: If you create a form that has a field asking for Name, you will only have one sort option. When people fill out forms they usually fill in their name "first name last name." If you create a form with two fields, "first name" and "last name," then you have the option to sort by last name alphabetically, usually a much more useful way to sort.
Example 2: If you include a text field called school name, participants have the option to enter what they want. You might get an answer that says "Central High School," "Central," "Central HS," or "CHS." When you get ready to sort those answers, they will sort into 4 different groups. If you create a drop-down menu that includes "Central HS" in a list of schools, then everyone's answer will be "Central HS" and you will easily be able to sort by school.
Collecting Data from Students:
The most important people that we can survey are our students and they are usually the group that is least asked for input. In the articles below, the word "teachers" is used instead of counselors but the same strategies and techniques apply to your relationships with your students and the tips in the articles will help you as well. It's so easy to think of asking our students for input LAST when we should be seeking their input and data FIRST.
5 Reasons you should Seek your own Student Feedback: Steps to helping students give you good feedback
A 4-Part System for Getting to know Your Kids: Parts 2 and 3: Take Inventory and Store Data: A nice chart for storing qualitative data as you get to know your students
Evaluating Online Learning: Ask Students for Feedback: Nice questions to ask students about online learning
3 Ways of Getting Student Feedback to Improve your Teaching: focus groups, surveys, private notes
Student Survey Questions that will Provide Valuable Feedback
Other ways to collect data:
Informal surveys: Surveys can be informal feedback or more formal surveys. A one-question survey is a great tool for formative assessment or just to get a feel for the room. Using tools like Socrative for asking questions to students is a great way to begin discussions but protect student's feelings and identity. Socrative allows you to hide the identity or answers to any question (and they can be off the cuff as well as planned questions) unless you want to display them. It also gives students the opportunity to share who might not ordinarily speak out.
3-2-1 Surveys: These are quick surveys that can be done in Google forms. You decide what you want your 3, your 2, and you 1 to be but they are easily adaptable to almost any situation.
Now, Next, Soon: Adapt the question to suit your needs
Observational Data:
"Walkthroughs" - what do you call this in virtual school?
Collecting Data using graphical representations (add examples)
Focus Groups (Qualitative Data)
Conducting Virtual Focus Groups: Good tips for engaging online survey participants
How to Conduct Online Focus Group Interviews: Nice set of procedures, guidelines, and recommendations fro conducting online focus groups
School Focus Groups Guidebook: Guidelines for New York Teachers from the State Department of Education
How to Conduct a Focus Group: Step-by-step directions for creating and running focus groups
Coding Qualitative Data: Go to steps for manually decoding qualitative data
The Essential Guide to Coding Qualitative Data: Inductive, Deductive, and combined ways of decoding qualitative data.
Practice Activity: Creating Effective Surveys (Part 1)
Article Review
Select 2 of the articles from the section “Collecting Data from Students.”
Make a list of 3-5 topics that you might want to get feedback or input on from your students.
Create a 5-10 question survey for your students on one of this topics.
Why is student voice so important in their education?
Identifying Good and Bad Questions:
Click on this link. You will be forced to make a copy of the slide deck.
Open the slide deck. Drag the textboxes with "bad questions" to the right-hand side of the table (green.)
Drag the textboxes with "good questions" to the left-hand side of the screen (yellow)
Can you identify the techniques used in the "bad questions?
Tricider/Formative
Select either Tricider or Formative.
Use it in an online discussion with a group of students.
The last question before dismissing the group should be a question to help you determine if this tool was effective.
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