Education Survey Options
Gathering feedback is a critical part of running any educational institution. Insights gleaned from regularly conducted surveys can provide an overview of all aspects of the learning environment and help identify support systems.
Make your surveys easy to complete with user-friendly templates that are considerate of respondents’ time. Use our drag-and-drop builder to customize your survey questions and create automated charts to maximize data organization.
Student Surveys
Students are the most aware of what goes on inside the academy, and hence can bring to light many issues that are not obvious to the faculty. Student surveys, if carefully crafted with specific questions, can lead to edification changes. Ideally, the survey items should be tethered to established education theory about teaching practices. This helps minimize errors that may skew the ratings for or against an individual teacher (Amrein-Beardsley & Haladyna, 2012).
For example, asking “How accessible is your instructor in terms of getting help with difficult concepts?” can identify students who have difficulty understanding course material and make it easier to reach out to these students for further explanations and guidance.
It is also helpful to include open-ended writing prompts in student surveys, which can reveal important details such as how students learn best and what they are most concerned about in class. These types of questionnaires often result in the most valuable feedback, but they can be more time consuming to develop and administer than Likert-type questions.
School Leavers Surveys
A school leavers survey is a longitudinal study that follows a sample of students who leave full time education after completing Year 12. This is an important way to understand what is happening with young people in their post-school years and provide information on trends.
Whether you are a university trying to secure funding or a school looking to attract new students, having access to meaningful data is essential for any educational establishment. Survey data that is collected and analyzed responsibly can provide invaluable insight to help you make the best decisions for your institution.
It can also be used to demonstrate your value and importance as an education provider. So if you are thinking of conducting an education survey, be sure to consider your objectives and audience groups carefully. The more targeted your questions are, the more meaningful and useful your results will be. For example, questions for parents are likely to have a different impact than those for students.
Course Evaluation Surveys
Course evaluation surveys are a form of direct student feedback that gathers data on the effectiveness of a particular course. The goal of these surveys is to identify what works and what doesn’t in a particular course, so that the institution can make changes accordingly. This type of survey usually includes questions on a variety of topics, such as how clearly the course material is explained, whether students understood their assignments, and more.
A crucial aspect of course evaluations is that they are typically kept anonymous. This encourages students to provide honest answers without worrying about consequences. Furthermore, it is essential that the questions are clear and precise so that the results can be interpreted accurately. It’s also a good idea to include open-ended questions, which allow students to explain their responses in more detail. This is the best way to ensure that your course evaluations are effective and meaningful.
Administrator Surveys
Often overlooked, administrators need to understand their institution from the perspective of the students, teachers and parents that support them. Education surveys allow for this understanding, while facilitating regular feedback that can help to improve the learning experience across all stakeholders.
Parent online surveys can be administered in the fall (opens October 1st) or spring (opens February 1st). Survey links are sent to school administrators who distribute them via email, multiple direct mailings, the student Learning Management System, automated texting systems or on the school website. Link security measures, like a log-in or password requirement, can be put in place to ensure that only parents/guardians access the survey.
We recommend administration for teacher and staff surveys take place early in the year to avoid scheduling conflicts with high stakes testing or poor attendance days. It is also important to train teachers on how to track student refusals and not return parental consent forms and to be aware of the need to administer the survey only to those students who have consented.