Survey Programs For Students
A student survey allows students to voice their issues, needs, and desires, giving feedback on how a teacher can change his or her instruction to help them perform better in class.When Christopher Pagan, a physics teacher at Trinidad Garza Early College High School, reflected on his students' performance, he realized that they weren't meeting his expectations or their own potential. 'I needed to come up with some way where I could improve how they were performing in class,' recalls Pagan.He didn't have all the answers, so he came up with an idea: he'd ask his students.Knowing that his students had a hard time learning the content, Pagan wanted them to reflect on what would make them more successful in his class, how do they learn best, and what kind of in-class activities would benefit their learning the most. Furthermore, many of his students were not retaking the tests on which they underperformed and were turning in their homework late, or not at all. He incorporated questions around those problems as well to learn how he could best help his students.The survey he developed took about five to ten minutes for students to fill out during class. 'He got the information back, changed how he taught, and changed how he tutored,' says Dr. Janice Lombardi, Trinidad Garza's principal.
“It changed and informed his instruction. As a result, last year, his students' physics scores phenomenally increased. We decided this might be one of our best practices.”Now, Trinidad Garza twice a year for all classes. How It's DoneStep 1.
Build a Small Group of Advocates: Start with one or more teachers who are enthusiastic about adopting student surveys. Track their data and impact over a year. By building small successes with this core group, other teachers will see the impact, you can share real-life success stories from your school, and you'll have a strong group of advocates who will support you throughout this process.At Trinidad Garza, Principal Lombardi was able to share Pagan's success.
This helped to bring other teachers on board.Step 2. Get Schoolwide Teacher Buy-In: Ease your teachers into the new practice. Take your time with introducing student surveys to your staff before having them implement them. Lombardi familiarized her faculty with student surveys over a number of meetings before they actually started using them. All staff went through a trial run of having their students take the surveys, and attended two mandatory presentations during a staff development and faculty meeting.
After these presentations, any future meetings about surveys were optional.Preview the survey questions with your teachers. It can be intimidating for teachers to receive feedback from their students on how they teach. Will the questions enable students to vent their frustration and take revenge on a teacher they don't like? Can these questions threaten a teacher's job? These were some of the concerns that Trinidad Garza’s teachers had. Cynthia Hess, a Trinidad Garza English teacher, recalls, 'My initial reaction was a little tinge of worry. Am I putting my professional hands in the opinions of a 17-year-old?'
When reviewing the questions with your teachers, share the purpose behind each question, and allow teachers to ask questions and share their thoughts and concerns.' Once we were given the opportunity to look at the questions, we saw that the questions were designed to inform instruction,' reflects Hess. “The questions weren't open-ended questions where a kid could be upset with you and take revenge if they were failing your class or didn't like you. Knowing that gave me a good degree of comfort.”Gather and share research, benefits, and examples. Gather research to share out with your staff about how student surveys can improve their teaching practice. Using educational websites, Lombardi found research that showed the impact of student surveys and examples of other schools that were successfully using them.This is what she shared with her teachers during a professional development session:. ' (Cult of Pedagogy).
Classroom Surveys For Students
' (Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University). ' (Vicki Davis, Edutopia)Lombardi also had Pagan present his experience and results with using student surveys in his physics classes. 'I was able to look at both my first and second semester data and share how this survey really helped in my classroom,' says Pagan. “One of the most striking things was the students’ satisfaction with their grades. That jumped about two or three points per class period, and the percentage of students that were turning in their homework in on time - or almost always on time - greatly increased.”Reinforce the purpose of implementing student surveys. Trying out a new practice can seem stressful, and many teachers will be concerned about adding one more thing to their workload. Be clear on the purpose of student surveys, reinforcing how they will benefit your teachers in the classroom.'
Survey Ideas For College Students
As the time for surveys approached, Dr. Lombardi reminded us and we talked about their purpose again,' says Hess.Be clear about the process of implementing student surveys. Be transparent with your teachers about what implementing this practice will entail, what their role in it will be, and the support they'll have. What will administering the student survey look like?. What will reviewing the student feedback look like?.
Are these evaluative surveys that will impact their job security?Step 3. Create Your Schoolwide Survey: If you're a teacher and want to adopt this practice in your classroom right away, you can use the —or use these tips on how to create your own questions.Keep the focus on your instruction, suggests Pagan. He explains, 'The purpose of this survey is to give my students a voice to tell me what changes I can make and what practices can I implement to help them perform better in class. It has nothing to do with content.
There's no questions on there about physics. It's general to what can I do to help my students.' He also suggests keeping it simple. 'Think of one problem area in your class and set up some questions around that. Also, leave some open-ended questions to surface problem areas that you didn't think about.' Pagan's problem areas were homework and quizzes.
Many of his students weren’t turning in their homework at all or were regularly turning it in late. He wanted to know why, and he wanted to know how he could help them fix the problem. Also, many of his students weren’t retaking quizzes on which they’d underperformed, and he wanted to learn how he could change that.When brainstorming questions for his survey, he thought of open-ended questions like, 'What can I do to help you?' And 'What would be beneficial that I could change?' He also brainstormed questions specific to homework and tests: 'Do you turn your homework assignments in on time?
And if so, or if not, why?' And 'How do you perform on tests and quizzes? If you don't do well, why is that? If you do well, why is that? Do you retake tests when you perform low on them? Why or why not?' Help students feel comfortable responding to the survey: The first time that students take a survey, most are surprised that they're being asked to give their opinion, and Pagan remembers that a few were apprehensive.
They often have questions like:. Are we going to be able to say whatever we want?. Do we have to put our name on it?Students do not have to add their names to the surveys. To preserve students' anonymity, the teachers step out of the classroom, and school counselors come in to administer the surveys.
Surveying Potential StudentsBy David Blough, University of WisconsinMapping a mailing list can be helpful in understanding a survey population. GIS also can contribute to the analysis of survey responses.Like many colleges and universities, the University of Wisconsin (UW) System surveys potential students to learn about their college expectations and their preferences for specific academic programs. GIS is not the first thing that typically comes to mind when people think of designing and analyzing mail surveys, but it has become a valuable tool for the UW System Market Research Unit, which provides survey research to four-year and two-year colleges within the UW System. Understanding the PopulationSurveying potential students can be more difficult than surveying current students. Typically, less is known about potential students beforehand. Mailing lists come from outside sources rather than campus records. Consequently, a survey of potential students runs a greater risk of asking the wrong questions than a survey of current students.Through experience, the UW System Market Research Unit has learned that mapping a mailing list is a quick and easy way to uncover errors in a list and gain insights into the population being surveyed.
For example, one of the smaller schools in the University of Wisconsin System acquired a mailing list from an academic testing organization with the intention of assessing the school's image among college-bound high school students. A map of the mailing list revealed that the list included many out-of-state students. These students were poor targets for an image study since they knew little about the school.In another case, a school in the UW System surveyed health care employees about their interest in a master's degree. These working professionals, who lived in the major metropolitan areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota, showed little interest in commuting to a rural UW campus. Had the geography of this population been noted beforehand, the lack of interest in the program might have been anticipated.
The health care professionals could have been asked about their interest in distance education or their perceptions of competing programs closer to their homes. This approach would have resulted in more useful information for the school.
Regional DifferencesMapping a mailing list can be helpful in understanding a survey population, but GIS also can contribute to the analysis of survey responses. When it is important to ensure that a survey is geographically representative, GIS can be used to define geographic regions for sample stratification or for post hoc weighting of responses.
The System Market Research Unit routinely uses GIS to ensure that survey responses match the geographic distribution of the population. When accessing awareness or perception of a college, GIS can be used to analyze regional differences among survey respondents.One UW school wanted to understand why some incoming freshmen cancelled their admission and decided not to attend. The college suspected these students did not want to live in the town where the college is located. To verify or disprove this theory, these students were asked to rate the importance of characteristics, such as the presence of shops and restaurants within walking distance of campus, and how well these characteristics described the town where the UW school is located.On average, the news was good. Students from most parts of the state were satisfied with the town, but those from one region felt the town was lacking in qualities important to the college experience. Knowing how the town's image differed across the state could guide the college's communication strategies with potential students from those areas. Commuting PreferencesFor nontraditional studentsthose who work full time and live off campusthe school's location may be a determining factor.
Analyzing a few simple survey questions with GIS can reveal which locations potential students will find more convenient.In one project, a consortium of schools in the Upper Midwest planned to offer a health sciences program over the Internet. However, the program's laboratory work needed to be taught face-to-face. What were the best locations for holding these labs? A survey described the program to potential students and asked how far they would be willing to commute to attend labs. The distance specified, as measured from each respondent's ZIP Code, became the preferred commuting area for that respondent. Overlaying the commuting areas revealed which locations were convenient for the greatest number of respondents. The result: a clearer picture of which schools in the consortium would be the most accessible sites for laboratory classes.Using GIS in the design and analysis of surveys is not the flashiest application of GIS, but it is an excellent example of how mapping and geoprocessing can contribute to research areas not normally thought of as geographic.
Higher education administrators, as well as market researchers in other fields, should take advantage of GIS capabilities.For more information, contactDavid BloughMarket Research/GIS AnalystUniversity of Wisconsin System AdministrationE-mail.