Lazy Morning Survey Thinking
Since I have fulfilled my Sunday morning commitments, now I have time to laze around and think. I love these quiet moments. Today I am pondering how I can make my school library better and more responsive to the needs of my users.
We finished our SACS (Southern Association of College and Schools) review right before Spring Break. One of the responses for our school as a whole was that we needed to provide more opportunities for parents and stakeholders to communicate. They suggested we put in a “Suggestion Box” in the front office so people could put in anonymous comments. We discussed the fact that any parent who emails us from the website is not anonymous so may feel stifled. So, what do you do?
I’d like to ramp up this area of communication and have been searching for the right tools to extend beyond those patrons who come into the school. As I was thinking I remembered how much fun I have participating in quizzes, surveys, and polls online from MySpace and other accounts particularly when I am with others (like my hubby-dear or my sons). Couldn’t I easily use Web 2.0 tools that are already developed by someone else to gather the information I like? It’s been over 5 years since I paper-surveyed my students with their smiling faces, frowning faces, and blank faces choices. I want to improve and gather feedback.
One of the websites GoToQuiz looked really promising until I carefully read the Terms. It doesn’t allow users under the age of 15. With the recent federal judge ruling against COPA I wonder if these terms will begin to change around the web.
Most of the sites I found charge you a monthly fee and have limits on the number of responses. You may think 1000 responses a month is sufficient, but let’s look at my situation. I have 540 students approximately (with a 41% mobility rate this changes daily). 2-4 parents and significant adults plus the student. Right there we are looking at closer to 2000 responses that could be gathered regarding one survey. I might be surveying about the library. A classroom teacher might be surveying parents on their communication preferences. The school could be surveying about dress codes. A grade level could be surveying about field trip preferences. I know that we will only get a small portion of responses, but I cannot waste my learning time on a product that will very quickly be limiting.
We need more flexibility that doesn’t cost anything. Yes, I mean free. I don’t have funds to finances surveys. I want to use the existing free tools of web 2.0. I also want to avoid Bad Survey Design. I took several quizzes, polls and surveys this morning while playing and I believe 90% of what I found was garbage. Both garbage in and garbage out. Fortunately there are good guides to survey design like the one posted by Creative Research Systems.
Help! Does anyone have a reliable tool to use?
I have used Quia (quia.com) for years. They charge something like $50 per year which is very reasonable and worthwhile for all the tools you get, including a survey tool. The results of the survey easily import into Excel so it is easy to slice and dice results whether there are 10 or 100 responses. And the Quia people are very helpful and supportive. You can see one I put together for Library Media Specialists in my district:
http://www.quia.com/sv/104876.html.
Comment by Rob Darrow — March 25, 2007 @ 11:47 am
I haven’t read over the TOS of SurveyMonkey, but I know it’s used frequently by people looking to survey large numbers. You sure are an optimist about your participation–I wonder if that’s a function of the involvment of parents at the elementary v. secondary levels!
Comment by Kim — April 3, 2007 @ 11:29 am
the Quia people are very helpful and supportive
Comment by 月饼 — June 4, 2007 @ 2:31 pm