Learning to Write Survey Questions
This morning, I was discussing my project with a few classmates on our way to class. My inquiry topic led the way to the sharing of our TOC experiences. Soon we were swapping TOC horror stories. I noticed a commonality between our stories…. showing up in a classroom and there is no day plan or schedule. There’s no baseline or starting point. The TOC is completely in the dark! One point was brought up in the discussion: how great would be if we knew in advance which were the ‘bad’ teachers that would leave TOCs unprepared to teach in their classrooms? It would definitely make life easier and less stressful for the TOC. Speaking of which, I created a question at the end our survey that asks the contributor to include information that he/she would want to know next time. I left the question open so the TOCs could interpret the question however they wanted to. I didn’t leave the question open intentionally to get the ‘dirty gossip’ on someone, but left it open for whatever the TOC found important that we didn’t include in our previous questions. But after some careful reflection and discussion, we modify the question to make more constructive question instead of destructive one. Really, does someone need to know who didn’t leave a plan for the TOC? Yes it would help TOCs prepare if they do get called into the classroom, but is this the best way? We should be trying to foster a community of collaboration and transparency, not one of hostility and criticism. We should be providing resources and not pointing fingers. I’m glad that we caught that misstep now, rather than after the survey went live. I wouldn’t want anyone to get in trouble for my error.
Another note about survey questions….
In my initial draft questions, most of the questions I created required short responses. Since each classroom and school varies with its technology, I wanted to get an accurate representation of the technology present. I believed that the short responses would allow the user to describe his/her individual situation more thoroughly. I didn’t realize the issues that we would encounter using these types of questions.
- It made the survey too long (time and duration): People want to go through a survey swiftly and easily. Wordy and long questions will turn off people from completing the survey.
- It made for long responses: When teachers look at the database, we don’t want to overwhelmed with information. They should be able to find the information quickly.
- It made it difficult to filter the information: Because each response will be different, we (or someone) would have to moderate the information so each answer is comparable. It would be more work for us (which I don’t want!).
Therefore we revised most of questions to checkbox or multiple choice answers.
Who knew writing survey question was so difficult??
I have been impressed with the care you took with your question design. This is a very important aspect of conducting inquiry: asking questions. You might find you need to re-develop the questions after you have had a chance to test them in the field. This is normal. We have to be very careful in framing questions so they don’t automatically point to bias or pre-determine answers. I think your categories for multiple choice are sound, you have based them on personal experience, they have a basis in reality. I do so hope your project gets used by TOCs. This could be a very useful collection of information for the TOC community.