using the survey tool in studentcentral to gather opinions › blogs.brighton.ac.uk › dist › 3...

Dr Les Ellam (April 2012) e-learning team (http://studentfolio.brighton.ac.uk/elearning) 1

–

Using the survey tool in studentcentral to gather opinions

Unlike paper surveys, online surveys have the advantage of low cost and quick distribution.

Additionally, if using the tool in studentcentral, responses go straight into the Grade Centre

eliminating transcription errors and allowing quick and easy analysis. This document looks

at an overview of online surveys, hints and tips and how to set one up in your study area on

studentcentral.


When would you use an Online Survey?

Gathering evidence on student experience

Adjusting instructional practices during the semester

Gathering anonymous feedback about instructor performance

Gathering anonymous feedback about the course or module

Determining what and how students are learning

Gaining insight into student attitudes about course/module content and assignments,

and student satisfaction with quizzes, exams, and the course/module in general

Works especially well for large classes

Is the survey tool in studentcentral totally anonymous?

If you use the studentcentral tool, although a survey response is not linked to a specific

student, surveys are not strictly anonymous because instructors can view a record showing

which students have completed them. However, when downloading results, student names

are NOT recorded. So it would be very hard to determine which students gave which answer.

You would have to continually go into the Grade Centre and see if any new names have

appeared and then look at the analysis again. So for all practical purposes, it IS anonymous.

Planning your survey

Determine the context and purpose of the survey

Develop central questions

Avoid the temptation of asking too many questions in a single survey or surveying

students "just to see what's going on"

Determine how you will use the results which should also guide the content of your

survey. If you will not use responses to a survey question to guide course or program

content or instruction, leave the question out

Decide at what point in your course you will survey your students and schedule it into

your course schedule

Add an announcement before you launch the survey to ensure students know it is

available. A multi-step process that separates the invitation and survey presentation is

less likely to cause a negative reaction (Sheehan, K. B., (2001) Email survey response

rates ; a review. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication)


Writing survey questions

Use simple language and language respondents understand to avoid producing biased

data

Too complex: "How ingenuous are you when the instructor asks if you have

understood material presented during a lecture?"

Better: "How honest are you when the instructor asks if you have understood

material presented during a lecture?

Write clearly. Good survey questions are clear and direct. Respondents should know

exactly what you are asking. A common mistake is to assume that respondents will

have the same understanding of a question that you do. Avoid asking questions that

have several possible meaning

Unclear: "How would you rate your participation during class?"

Clearer: "Compared to others in the course, how often do you ask questions

during lectures?"

Avoid universal words and double negatives. Because respondents may avoid

choosing extremes, do not use universal words such as "all," "always," "none," and

"never". It is also best to avoid words such as "only", "just", and "merely", which may

lead respondents to answer in a particular way and bias the results. Negatively worded

questions are often confusing because responding "no" creates a double negative.

Write short questions. Questions should be short and simple, rarely exceeding 20

words. Survey items are often completed quickly, without much thought. Therefore,

compound questions can lead to misinterpretation when the respondent tries to

rapidly read, understand, and answer them.

One concept per question. Each survey questions should contain only one concept.

"Double-barrelled" questions, addressing more than one concept, may confuse the

respondent. The solution is to separate two ideas into two questions.

Avoid biased questions. Write questions that do not lead the respondent to answer a

particular way.

Biased: "This semester we used state-of-the-art technology with the

wonderful new interactive whiteboard. What is your opinion of the system?"

Better: "What is your opinion of the interactive whiteboard?"


Organising online surveys

Start with a name, description, and instructions for your survey. If you use the

studentcentral tool, these boxes are there for you to complete already

Write an introduction explaining the survey's purpose, how results will be used, how to

complete the survey, and the terms of confidentiality or anonymity. Providing these

terms promotes honest responding

Use clear, basic instructions for completing the survey. For short answer or essay

questions explain the desired length and detail of responses

Make the survey visually inviting and easy to follow

Avoid tiny fonts or fonts that are distracting or difficult to read

Order questions carefully to improve the flow and coherence of your survey

Group similar questions together so the survey is easy to follow

Ask interesting questions first in order to engage respondents

Position sensitive questions in the middle. Once respondents have begun completing

your survey, they may be more likely to answer sensitive questions. Placing them at

the very beginning may result in potential respondents refusing to participate.

Place demographic questions (gender, year, age, etc.) at the end.

Benefits of using online surveys

Low cost

Quick distribution

You can create your own questions

You can order and re-order them as you wish

Typically transfer responses into a database which eliminates transcription errors

For a good review of online surveys search for Evans, J.R., Mathur. A. (2005) The value of online

surveys. Internet Research 15 (2)

Benefits of using the studentcentral tool for online surveys

You can include multi-media or embed web addresses

You can download raw data to run cross-tabular analysis

It operates within a secure and familiar environment


Limitations of using online surveys

Much research has been done into why response rates to online surveys are not as high as

traditional paper based surveys.

Suggestions to boost online survey response rates include offering incentives such as increased

grades or even money (not usually the norm in traditional module evaluations so maybe not

appropriate here!). Clearly any incentives may introduce a systematic bias into the study.

Studies have found that online evaluations do not produce significantly different mean

evaluation scores than traditional paper evaluations (Dommeyer, C.J. et al (2004) Gathering

faculty teaching evaluations buy in-class and online surveys ; their effects on response rates and

evaluations Assssment & Evaluation in Higher Education 29 (5) )

Respondents must be enrolled in the course/module area if using the studentcentral

tool

Not suitable for assessing individual student performance as the response output is

anonymous

Electronic surveys generally have lower response rates than paper surveys

Requires having clear assessment goals and an understanding of assessment practices

in order to write effective questions and properly organise the survey

High non-response rates may revolve around issues of privacy and confidentiality

Poorly designed online surveys encourage novice users to break off the survey process,

making them less effective than paper surveys

The inability to inspect the survey document prior to completion, as can be done with a

paper copy

Limitations of using the studentcentral tool for online surveys

No graphics available to display results

All respondents must be enrolled in the same study area

Best used when only simple analysis is required


If you use the studentcentral survey tool, you build a survey in the same way as you might

build a Test, adding questions from a list of question types, choosing settings which define how

the survey will be made available and collecting the results from participants

Setting up an individual Survey in studentcentral

1. Login to your appropriate study area

2. From the Course Management Control Panel (beneath the menu) choose Course Tools

> Tests, Surveys and Pools

3. To set up an individual survey, choose Surveys

4. Click Build Survey

5. On the Survey Information page, type a Name for the survey

6. It is advisable to enter a Description and Instructions

7. When you have completed these two boxes, click Submit and you will be taken to the

area where you start to compose the questions, by clicking the options arrow beside

Create Question

8. On the Survey Canvas page, click the Create Question

options arrow

9. Choose the question type you want from the list

10. The question type most often used in surveys is Opinion

Scale/Likert

11. Another question type most frequently chosen is Short

Answer which gives the students 3 ‘lines’ to write some

text in – although they can exceed the 3 lines. This could

be used as “Please use this space to comment on your

answer to the previous question” for example


12. The following example show how you might wish to use an Opinion Scale/Likert

question after choosing it from step 9 above

13. In section (1) Question, type a statement into the Question Text box (you don’t need to

use the Title box), e.g. “The module was well planned”

14. Choose the settings you want in section (2) Options

15. We recommend you change the setting from the default of 1, 2, 3 to None so that the

answers do not appear as being in an order which may sway responses

16. Answer Orientation is up to your own preference but the default of Horizontal is fine

17. It is probably best to NOT randomise answers

18. In section (3) Answers, choose how many options you want to offer. The default

setting for this question type is 6 options of :

Strongly agree

Agree

Neither agree nor disagree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Not applicable


19. You can use the answers offered, or type your own into the boxes provided for each

answer or Remove ones you don’t want

20. If you wish to change the answer, you simply click into the box and change the text

21. If you want less answers, you simply click Remove beside the answer

22. You can ignore Sections 4 and 5 and click Submit

23. You continue adding questions in that way

24. If you want to add a ‘comment’ style question you could choose the question type of

Short Answer

25. The default ‘size’ for this question is 3 rows although this can be changed. But if you

have selected 3 and the students wants to write more, it does allow them to. So seeing

3 rows, for example, just gives them some idea of how much text you wish them to add

26. Another question type you may wish to use is Multiple Choice

27. Again, you would type the question in the Question Text box

28. There are 4 answers by default, but as before you can remove or add some

29. After you have added all your questions, you can rearrange the order of the questions

by using the drop and drag arrows to the left of each question or you can use the less

fiddly method of using the Reorder box over on the right hand side


30. When you have added all your questions, click OK (at the bottom right of the page)


Making the Survey Available (Deploying the Survey)

1. It is recommended you don’t ‘bury’ your survey inside an existing content area or

menu. So create a new menu link called (for example) Survey by using the Add Menu

Item button (green plus at the top left of the menu) and choosing Create Content Area

(remembering to make it available to users or else your students won’t see it)

2. Click Create Assessment > Survey

3. In the Add Survey box you will get a list of all surveys which haven’t yet been used

elsewhere in that module (i.e. already deployed) so select the appropriate one and click

Submit


4. You’ll see the Name and Description boxes are filled in for section (1) Survey

Information – but you could amend these if you choose

5. You can choose to have the survey opening in a new window if you wish. If the survey

is about the study area – e.g. module evaluation, you might as well leave it opening

inside the module area. If it is about something outside of the teaching area, you might

want to choose to open the survey window separately

6. In section (2) Survey Availability, carefully choose the options you want :

You probably certainly want to Make the Link Available (Yes)

You might want to Add a New Announcement for this Survey (this automatically

adds a standard announcement to that study area)

Are Multiple Attempts to be allowed or is this a ‘one off’? Most surveys are

probably single attempt only

Note that the Force Completion option means that the survey must be

completed the first time it's launched - it cannot be started and then resumed at

a later time. If you use this option it may well be a good idea to state this in the

Instructions

Note that the Set Timer option will record when the survey is submitted. You

get an additional option of allowing the student to continue after the time

expires or saving and submitting automatically at time expiry. These options are

probably not appropriate for a survey

Display After and Display Until options are as usual

You could choose to set a Password – but this option is more frequently used in

a Test


7. In section (3) Due Date you could set a date when submissions would be marked as

Late in the Grade Centre although they will still be accepted

8. In section (4) Self-assessment Options you probably want to leave the tick out as this is

a survey and not a graded test

9. In section (5) Survey Feedback, you may wish to tick both boxes so the student knows

they have completed and could print out their responses

10. In section (6) Survey Presentation, the recommended setting is All at Once

11. When you have worked your way through these options, click Submit

12. To edit any of the survey options at a later date, click the options arrow to the right of

the survey and choose Edit the Survey Options

13. To edit the survey itself at a later date, e.g. add, delete or amend questions, choose

Edit the Survey


After the survey has been completed, you will want to know the responses. One of the

benefits of using the studentcentral survey tool is that the results are stored in the Grade

Centre where they can be viewed and downloaded for further and more detailed analysis

How to view the survey results from the Grade Centre

1. From the Course Management Control Panel (below the left hand side menu) choose

Grade Centre > Full Grade Centre

2. Use the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the list of students to scroll along to the

column that is titled with the name of your survey.

3. Click on the survey title in the Information Bar and select the option arrow to the right

4. Choose Attempt Statistics

Use this scroll

bar to scroll

along so you can

view your survey

column


6. This will bring up a summary of all the survey results – percentages and any free text

answers which you could copy and paste into a Word document

How to download the survey results from the Grade Centre

1. To download the results into an Excel

format you choose Download Results

from the options arrow to the right of the

survey title

2. Choose Click to Download Results (you

can leave all the options as the default

settings)

3. You’ll get a (heavily formatted) Excel

spreadsheet but this will be sufficient for

you to use the Data > Filter tools to cross

correlate one or more columns


The Survey tool is useful for things like questionnaires and evaluations, when you want an

online form that users can complete anonymously. Sometimes you may wish to use the same

survey in different areas – for module evaluation for example. On other occasions you may

want to repeat the survey with a different group or cohort. It is not recommended to re-use an

existing survey by simply opening it again It is better practice to export the existing one and

re-import it back into the same area so it is empty and can be used fresh.

How to export a survey in studentcentral

1. From the Course Management Control Panel area (below the menu) choose Course

Tools > Tests, Surveys and Pools

2. Choose Surveys from the screen that follows

3. Click the small options option to the right of the survey you wish to export and choose

Export

4. You will get a window asking if you wish to Open

or Save the file (it will be a zip file) – choose

Save and remember where you have saved it

(your Desktop would be a good idea if you

intend to Import immediately)

5. That will bundle the entire survey up as a zip file

ready to be imported into another area on

studentcentral


How to import a survey in studentcentral

1. Go to the module area where you want the survey to be copied – this could be a new

area of the same one if you wish to redeploy the same survey to a new group of

students

2. You now repeat the process you have just done namely go to the Course Management

Control Panel (below the menu) and choose Course Tools > Tests, Surveys and Pools

3. Choose Surveys from the screen that follows

4. This time choose Import Survey

5. Browse to the zipped file you have saved

6. Click Open

7. Click Submit

8. You get a Success Receipt if all has worked

9. Click OK down the bottom of the screen

10. If you have imported the survey back into the same area as exported, you’ll see two

surveys with the same name. It is best to change the name of the imported one

immediately so you don’t get confused later

11. To do this simply click the options arrow beside the survey that says No in the Deployed

column and choose Edit so that you can rename it


12. Once the survey is imported it is ready to be deployed as you would do when creating a

new survey

13. You may need to do some tweaking or editing of the new item – simply click the options

arrow beside the newly added survey to edit the options or the survey itself

using the survey tool in studentcentral to gather opinions › blogs.brighton.ac.uk › dist › 3...

Documents