Questions To Consider When Writing A Survey

Questions To Consider When Writing A Surveythinking About When To Use

Questions to Consider When Writing a Survey Thinking about when to use open vs. closed questions: • Do the advantages of using open questions out way the disadvantages? o Advantages o Respondents are not limited to a set of responses and are free to say whatever comes to mind which could give you richer responses. o Easier to write because you don’t have to include appropriate answer choices o disadvantages o Responding takes more effort (thought and time) on the part of respondent to complete and as a result you may get a large amount of short responses and/or no responses. o It can be difficult to summarize the data. • Do the advantages of using closed questions out way the disadvantages? o Advantages â–ª Easier for respondents to complete and to analyze the resulting responses. o Disadvantages â–ª Can be difficult to write because need to include all relevant answer choices â–ª Responses are not as rich or insightful because respondents are not using their own words Thinking about Utts’ 7 Pitfalls when writing your survey: • Deliberate bias o Did you use “do you agree†in your questions? o Does the wording of the questions allude to a desired answer? • Unintentional bias o Are you sure respondents will interpret the questions as you intended? • Desire to please o Are your questions likely to elicit socially desirable responses? (Are parents likely to be honest when answering questions related to their child’s bad behavior?) • Asking the uninformed o What are the respondents’ level of understanding and familiarity with the thing/concept you are asking about? (Are parent even aware that a new behavior program has been implemented? Are parents’ ideas of positive and negative behaviors consistent with how they are defined in the program?) • Unnecessary complexity o Are the questions clear and straight forward to answer? • Ordering of questions o Do you think that changing the ordering of the questions might influences how respondents answer the questions? • Confidentially vs. anonymity o What are the potential benefits of being able to connect respondents’ names with their actual answers? What are the potential negative effects of this? o Is it clear to participants that their responses will be either anonymous or confidential? o Even if you say responses will be anonymous, would you be able to figure out the identity of respondent by looking at their responses to other questions on the survey? o If you state on the survey that responses will be either confidential or anonymous, do respondents truly understand what that means? Other things to consider • Did you include a title for your survey? (Sometimes parents disregard papers if they can’t quickly figure out what they are for.) • Are the directions on how to complete the survey and how and when to return completed survey’s clearly stated? • Do respondents clearly understand the reason you are asking them to complete the survey? (The better understand respondents have about why they are being asked to complete a survey the more likely they are to complete it) • Do respondents know what the results will be used for and by whom? (Respondents should have a clear understanding of how their responses will be used and who will use them.) • Will the questions you have include on your survey really give you the information you are looking for? Instructions: Before starting the work: • Listen to the following NPR story entitled How Happy is America? america (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. • Read the PDF file titled “ Questions to Consider When Writing a Surveyâ€(Attached): This PDF will be particularly helpful in part 3 below where you are asked to create and critique a Parent Survey. • Read the attached chapter(3) from the text book. Do the following requirements: 1. Journal: Your journal is divided into 2 parts. (Note: that both parts should be in the same journal entry) Part 1: Provide three versions of a question asking people if they feel money can make people happy. Word the question to be as follows: a) Version 1: Word the question as unbiased as possible b) Version 2: Word the question so that those surveyed are likely to respond that money Does make people happy c) Version 3: Word the question so that those surveyed are likely to respond that money Does Not make people happy. For each version include an explanation of WHY the wording of that question would most likely elicit the desired response. For example, explain why you think the wording of Version 3 is likely to get people to respond that money does not make them happy. Part 2: Imagine that you have developed a survey to measure how happy Americans are. A researcher well versed in gathering evidence of reliability and validity has found your survey to be valid, reliable, and unbiased. Explain in your own words what these findings mean. 2. Creating & Critiquing Parent Survey: The activity will involve one step. Step 1: entails creating items for a survey. Explained bellow: Step 1 – Creating Survey Items: You have instituted a new behavior management program in your classroom and as a result, you have observed in your classroom a decline in the number disciplinary problems and an increase in the number of positive and supportive behaviors exhibited by your students. You are curious as to whether or not this decrease in behavior problems and increase in positive behaviors is also occurring at home so you decide to create a survey to send home with your students. Specifically, you want to find out how the parents see the behavior management program you implemented in your classroom as influencing their child’s behavior at home. Create survey items designed to answer this question. As you create your survey items be sure to take steps to avoid the seven pitfalls listed on page 42 in the Utts textbook. (Attached). 3. Connecting Source to the attached chapter(3): In last week’s Agenda you were asked to do the following: (( Pick a newspaper, magazine, internet news site, or blog to follow in terms of how they utilize and report statistical information. In future Week Agendas you will have opportunities to reflect on what you are observing in your chosen news source.)) NOW: For this week, select a piece (e.g., article, story, blog, etc.) from your source that is relevant to one of (chapter 3) topics discussed in Utts’ chapter 3 (Attached). Describe in your own words the following: 1. how the piece relates to one of (chapter 3) topics. 2. In addition, critique the piece using what you have learned in this Utts chapter 3; address what it did well and what it did not do well. 3. Post a link to or a pdf of the piece in the assignment page. Due in 12 hours.