Saving Trees Administering Student Opinion Surveys

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Saving Trees!Administering Student Opinion
Surveys

• Charlene Stubblefield Senior Instructional
  Designer/Trainer
• Major StewartInstructional Designer/Trainer
• Prairie View AM University (PVAMU)
• Office of Distance Learning
• Prairie View, Texas

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Overview

• PVAMU was attempting to go from paper to online
  surveys.
• After investigating, we found the commercial
  online packages were too expensive.
• We began to consider tools that were less
  expensive and resources that we already had
  available to us.

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Development

• Transferred existing-paper based survey to
  electronic format
• Added and modified questions to make the survey
  applicable to both traditional courses and
  distance courses (online and video-based)
• Submitted all questions to PVAMUs Institutional
  Research for approval

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Evaluation of Tools

• Survey Monkey
• WebCT
• NSurvey
• Combination of WebCT and NSurvey

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Evaluation of Tools

• Survey Monkey was rejected because
• Hosted by outside entity which did not provide
  internal security (ie firewall)
• No control of the number of surveys completed by
  students
• Title Survey Monkey did not create confidence
  in the process
• Additional login and password required

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Evaluation of Tools

• WebCT was considered because it is hosted by
  PVAMU, but we encountered the following issues
• The data was not easily retrieved
• Even though participants were anonymous, the
  instructor could still see the results
• Tedious to students they have to click the
  save button after each response, which could
  lead to lack of participation

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Evaluation of Tools

• NSurvey was considered because it is hosted by
  PVAMU, but we encountered the following issue
• Could not control the number of surveys completed
  per participant

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Evaluation of Tools

• The solution was to combine WebCT and NSurvey
• Nsurvey contains survey questions, instructors do
  not have access to results.
• WebCT controls the number of student attempts.

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Evaluation of Tools

• Survey Access
• A short quiz was placed in WebCT that contained a
  link to the SOS.
• The quiz could only be taken once, so the student
  would only have access to the SOS link once.

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Implementation

• Spring 2006 with online courses only
• Summer 2007 entire campus
• Fall 2006 entire campus

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Results

• Percentage of surveys returned
• A comparison of results from the Fall 2004 (paper
  based) versus Fall 2006 (electronic) yielded the
  following results
• Fall 2004 81 participation rate
• Fall 2006 72 participation rate

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Faculty/Staff Response

• Advantages
• Class time does not have to be used for
  distribution, completion, and collection.
• Staff no longer needs to sort, distribute, and
  collect paper surveys.
• Disadvantages
• Faculty concerns
• Fear of a lack of participation because if
  students are not supervised in a classroom, will
  they complete the survey?
• Would they be penalized for technology issues?

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Student Response

• Advantages
• Survey can be completed in their free time.
• Survey can be taken in a location of their
  choosing.
• Disadvantages
• Some lack of participation due to
  student-perceived lack of anonymity.
• Some students forgot or just did not bother to
  take it outside of the classroom.

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Administrator Response

• Easier data collection
• The process of analyzing data and reporting was
  made much faster because of the quicker
  turnaround of raw data.

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Conclusion

• Overall, the advantages outweighed the
  disadvantages.
• The primary issue, lack of student participation
  was addressed by
• Explaining to students that they can contribute
  to the rewarding of good instructors or the
  penalizing of bad ones because the surveys are
  taken into consideration when determining salary
  raises and performance bonuses.
• Some faculty took it upon themselves to offer
  points to students who participated.

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Contact Information

• Prairie View AM University
• Office of Distance Learning
• Mail Stop 1210, P.O. Box 519
• Prairie View, Texas 77446
• Charlene Stubblefield, M.Ed.
• Senior Instructional Designer/Trainer
• phone [phone] fax [phone]
• email cjstubblefield_at_pvamu.edu
• Major Stewart, M.Ed.
• Instructional Designer/Trainer
• phone [phone] fax [phone]
• email mjstewart_at_pvamu.edu