Research - Tips on Designing and Using Student Surveys

(adapted from HOME, Inc. & Dan Jaffee)
Reproduced with permission

If you've had a college course in statistics, you may vaguely remember significance factors, validity, and norms. Yet most surveys used for academic purposes in a school setting do not require a PhD –your survey data does not need to meet rigorous scientific standards. Surveys can be useful as educational tools in the classroom; survey data can be used for discussion and analysis, point and counterpoint.

Surveys offer students the opportunities to develop higher-order thinking skills in the areas of research, Mathematics (simple & complex), Social Studies and the use of computers. Surveys offer opportunities for discussion, consensus building and teamwork.

Some Tips for Designing Surveys in Schools:

• Use items for which results can be quantified and counted. You might love to ask open-ended questions, but how do you tally them up? Use true-false, yes-no, multiple choice, or rating (e.g. on a scale of 1 to 5) items. It's good to use a mix of question types in order to get a well-rounded view of the issue(s) at hand.
• Seek interesting results. Don't ask questions for which you think you can easily predict the answers. For example, on a student survey on school technology, don't ask "Should students be allowed to use cell phones in school?" You know 99% will say yes.
• Get useful information. Will each item yield information that can be useful in some way? Consider how useful the data collected can be to the goal, outcome, or purpose of your project, study or paper.
• If possible, use some items that can be compared to norms. For instance, if an item will gage the level of technological access and use in a particular school, you can compare this to the school district, state or national levels.
• Be careful about wording the items. Consider these tips: (a) Use vocabulary that all students (or your intended audience) can understand, even if it's not your vocabulary (e.g. refer to technology by popular or technical names: an MP3 player versus an iPod). (b) Keep the language and syntax of your sentences simple and clear. (c) Word items as neutrally as possible, i.e. avoid leading items. Sometimes it's as simple as saying "Which is better, A or B?" (d) Sometimes the order of the items can be leading, because an earlier item plants an impression in the reader's mind.
• Above all, field-test the survey, even after you have carefully designed it. For example, give it to a small group or students (or your target audience) and then discuss it with them, item by item. You'll identify items that are unclear, misleading, confusing or biased.