13 Survey Questions Exchange

Course: Introduction to Managerial Statistics (QMB 5304)

Description

In this activity students are asked to write an objective for their survey and three survey questions. These questions are written as a team and posted to a Google Document. After all teams have posted their questions, the teams then review the questions and vote on which set of questions are best. They can not vote for their own questions. (I have done this with only students in the classroom, and also as a part of a virtual exchange with students in Scotland.) As a debriefing of the activity, students create a list of sound survey writing principles.

Assignment Goals/Outcomes

The goal of the activity to practice good survey writing and to identify good survey questions.

Assignment Setup (Instructor)

To setup this activity, a shared document (such as a Google Document) needs to be created before class. Students need to be granted access to edit the document. It is also beneficial to have the instructions posted in Canvas, so that students can easily review the instructions.

Student Instructions

Purpose:
The purpose of this task is to define a workplace or student construct of happiness and write survey questions to measure this construct. You will share your work with students in Scotland and pick which team you determine did the best job writing survey questions.

Task:
Part 1: Choose one of the two prefaces below.

• Preface 1: You are a university administrator and interested in your students’ well-being and happiness. You believe that student happiness is a key to student academic success. You would like to send out a survey every year to determine students’ happiness at the university.
• Preface 2: You are a manager at a business and interested in your employee’s well-being and happiness. You believe that employees happiness at their workplace is an important pillar of the business’s success. You would like to send out a survey every year to determine employees’ happiness at the business.

Select the preface of happiness that you are interested in studying. Determine a construct of happiness to measure. Then write a survey to measure this construct. Your team has been asked to provide 3 questions.

You want to make sure that your questions are clear, easy to understand and unbiased. Remember that these questions need to be specific and be able to lead to results in which actions and decisions can be based. You will enter your three survey questions and your construct that your team is measuring into the google document provided by your instructor.

Part 2: If possible, attend the Zoom meeting to discuss the survey questions with students from the University of Scotland. Pick the team’s questions that best meet the requirements. The questions should be judged on the below criteria.

• The construct and objective are clearly written and easy to understand.
• The survey questions measure the construct.
• The survey questions are specific and lead to results in which an action or decision can be based.
• The questions are clear and easy to understand.
• The questions are unbiased.

Part 3: Submit in the Canvas assignment the following.

1. Your team’s survey questions.
2. Your team’s pick of the best team’s questions and why. You should copy and paste the questions that you have chosen as the best into the document.
3. A short 25 work reflection. The reflection should pertain to the cultural relevance of this activity. For example, what surprised you or did not surprise you about the questions shared between the US and Scotland?

Criteria:
Part 1: Your survey questions will be graded on a 1-5-point scale, based on these categories.

• The construct and objective are clearly written and easy to understand.
• The survey questions measure the construct.
• The survey questions are specific and lead to results in which an action or decision can be based.
• The questions are clear and easy to understand.
• The questions are unbiased.

Part 2: The rationale for the team pick used the stated survey criteria.
Part 3: The reflection contains a cultural reflection about the experience (turned in separately).

Grading (Instructor/TA)

Make sure that the reflection includes a discussion of cultural differences and/or similarities.

Tips and Suggestions for Instructors

This activity can be re-purposed as any type of assignment/activity where you want students to critique and analyze writing. The key to success is to keep the writing portion short. You also want to make sure that you debrief at the end, so that students can articulate the writing principles that were emphasized in the activity.

Keywords: group activity, survey, shared document, survey writing, analyze, survey questions