Developing a Survey

Video Transcription

Hello there, and welcome. The title of this lesson is Developing a Survey, and my goal is to walk you through the process of how to do just that. So let's get started.

Before we can walk through the process of developing a survey, we need to create some context. We will imagine that you or your elementary team would like to find out if morning meanings are happening in all classrooms, and if so, what activities and learning experiences are taking place in those meanings. Let's begin by reviewing some of the key elements needed to develop the survey to find that information out.

We need to survey topic, the sample, the survey approach, we need to develop your questions, and analyze the data. We'll go through each one of these with a little bit more detail. The first step is to decide the topic of your survey, or in other words, what is it that you want to find out? As indicated for our example, we want to find out how many classrooms are holding morning meanings, and what do they look like.

Next, you need to decide who your sample will be. If the information gathered from our survey is meant to increase and improve the benefits of morning meanings, then classroom teachers are the ones most impacted. Therefore, our sample will be classroom teachers of grades K through 5. The next decision you need to make is how you will deliver your survey, which includes the creation and implementation of it. Online surveys today pretty much dominate the landscape because they are effective, usually free, and easy to use. In our example, I might use SurveyMonkey or Google Forms.

Now would be the time to think about the kinds of questions you would want to ask in your survey. You have two main options to consider-- structured and unstructured. This is a little more involved than you may think at first. Your questions need to be free from any bias that might lead the respond one way or another. The questions you ask will also directly impact the validity and reliability of your survey.

Let's go ahead and look at a set of questions we might ask in our morning meeting survey. You may want to pause the video here to preview them first. Do you hold morning meanings with your class? This question is structured because it's either a yes or no answer. If so, how many times per week? Also structured, and can be answered with a number. If not, what is preventing you from having meetings? This is unstructured. You're hoping to get an explanation here.

On average, how long are your meetings? Structured. I would, however, add to this question "Describe the time in minutes" in order to keep responses consistent. What topics mostly come up at your meetings? This question can go either way. As the developer, I can keep it unstructured and leave it open-ended, or I can structure it by anticipating some of the answers and giving them choices.

Are academic topics covered? If so, which? This one's unstructured because I'm looking for a list that we can dig into later, so all answers are welcomed. Do you follow the responsive classroom format? This is not a good question because it's very limiting. The question should read "Do you follow a specific format? If so, which?" Are the expectations for meetings posted? This question is structured and assumes that the teacher has expectations.

How does having meetings impact your Class I like this question because it's unstructured and can really tap into the teacher's feelings about class meetings. Would you be willing to share your experience with the staff? This is structured because, again, it's a yes or no question.

The final piece to this entire process comes after the survey window closes, and that is to analyze your data. How you decide to analyze and represent your data is actually something you want to be thinking about during the planning stage. In our example, I may choose to have a pie chart that shows how many classes are holding morning meetings, and maybe a bar graph listing the activities happening during those meetings.

So it's time to summarize this short but important lesson. In this lesson we talked all about walking through the process of developing a survey. We started by introducing the key elements and then went through each of them, from selecting a topic to analyzing the data, and everything in between. And now for today's food for thought. Review the key elements that should be included when designing surveys, and think about them the next time you are given a survey.

As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you might want to explore the additional resources section that accompany this presentation. Here you'll find links to resources chosen to help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skill set. As always, thanks so much for joining me. We'll see you next time.