| Rapid online surveys provide actionable insights into the student experience. They are useful for: – Gaining swift and regular feedback from all of your students at once – Gathering ideas and suggestions from your students PREPARATION: Design and upload your questions (30 mins-1 hour) TIMING: Up to 5 minutes for students to complete survey |
| 1. DECIDE UPON YOUR FOCUS Be clear what you want to find out. A rapid survey only asks a small number of questions so it is important that you prioritise them. Consider whether you want to gauge the feeling of the whole class about an issue or if want to source ideas and suggestions. Do you want to assess learner progress or seek their opinions? | 2. SELECT SURVEY TOOL There are several tools to create simple surveys. If you want students to complete a quick survey during an online class then the polling tools in Collaborate Ultra, Zoom, or Teamswill enable you to ask multiple-choice questions and get instant feedback. For more in-depth questions the survey tool within Learn Ultra and Microsoft Forms are good options. | 3. DESIGN YOUR QUESTIONS Rapid surveys require questions that are easy to understand and straightforward to answer. Open free text questions, numerical answer, or closed questions such as multiple choice or multiple selection are common question types. Check that your questions are clear, simple, unbiased, and avoid double negatives and jargon. | 4. DESIGN YOUR ANALYSIS Work out the purpose of your data before you carry out your survey. Will you use descriptive or inferential statistics? Will you be able to collect enough data to make any inferences valid? How will you analyse textual data? Think about actions you could take as a result of your findings – if there are no possible actions then consider asking different questions. |
| 5. TEST YOUR QUESTIONS Before you use your survey with students, ask a friend or colleague to read it through and test their understanding of the questions to make sure that they have understood what you have asked. It’s very easy to accidentally ask an ambiguous question, or one that can be interpreted in different ways, so it is useful to carry out a quick sense check before you go live. | 6. IMPLEMENT YOUR SURVEY Make your survey available to your students in class or through the VLE. Provide simple instructions and be clear about how you are going to use the collected data. Students have the right not to participate and you must make this clear. If you are explicit about the survey’s purpose, highlight the benefits of taking part, and keep your surveys short and infrequent, students will be motivated to participate. | 7. TAKE ACTION Follow up on any of the survey feedback that you receive from students. It is helpful to share with students what their feedback said, and what you did as a result of it. This will help to ensure engagement in future surveys. | Download a full colour version of the recipe cards.Recipe Card (PDF) |
Links to Online Resources
- Writing good survey questions
- NHS Guide to writing an effective questionnaire
- Using Microsoft Forms
- Using PollEverywhere
- Creating a poll in Teams
- Creating a poll in Zoom
- Creating a poll in Collaborate
Links to Papers/Books
- Robson, C. Real World Research. Wiley-Blackwell: Maldon, MA. Chapter 11: Surveys and questionnaires, pp 243-283, Available via DU Library