Matthews et al. (2010, p.201) describe questionnaires as well placed to collect ‘opinions and wishes’ which reflects my refined research question; now focused on understanding effects on student engagement when using the bibliography, and their preferences for change.
Having initially drafted my survey questionnaire I revised the questions and logic several times following discussions in group tutorials, and tests, as Converse & Presser recommend; using ‘successive trials’ (1986). My first survey draft was positioned to answer ‘real organisational problems or issues’ (Coghlan, 2011) and to validate diversifying the resource – it didn’t yet reflect my research full question or leave enough room for unexpected findings. Following feedback from outside my ‘own academic… subculture’ (Converse & Presser, 1986), I allowed for more variance in the answers, adding a sliding scale option, and including more probing questions for students who hadn’t used the bibliography.
I also took learnings from course colleagues’ introductory and consent questions, adopting a more thoughtful and human introductory page to encourage meaningful and frank responses. I used skip logic to ensure respondents would only encounter relevant questions. I used nine survey questions total, with maximum eight per respondent. Two of these were free-text questions for open feedback, the others were multiple choice questions and sliding scales options.
Full circulation by email to the 400+ cohort of students took place after the main dissertation deadline and the first ISA/ EC deadline had passed. I included both a QR code and a link.
I subsequently realised that circulating so close to end of term was too late to gather as many responses as I hoped; the initial response rate was disappointing. I then ‘flyered’ the library space, with a shorter, more friendly, note and a QR code for quick phone access. My target cohort had since moved on to the practice element of the their unit, so I also took flyers in person to the studios, asking students I met to help me out with my own student work. This improved the response rate significantly, from a handful to nearly 30, of which 16 were fully completed.
Coghlan suggests, taking cyclical further actions while analysing the data (2011). I started to dip into the responses early to get an initial shape of the feedback, with a view to taking an iterative and open approach to the research. Even though a survey questionnaire feels like a quantitative tool I tried to listen to each response, taking a ‘person-focused’ approach (Lenette, 2022), rather than a counting and measuring exercise; looking for an abundance of new ideas rather than a winning single outcome.
Final survey materials are attached here as appendices.
Appendices
Appendix 1. Copy of the circulated survey
Appendix 2. Survey flyers circulated
Appendix 3. Survey email circulated
References
Coghlan, D. (2011) ‘Action research: Exploring perspectives on a philosophy of practical knowing’, Academy of management annals, 5 (1), pp. 53–87.
doi: doi.org/10.5465/19416520.2011.571520.
Converse, J. M., & Presser, S. (1986) Survey questions, in Quantitative applications in the social sciences. SAGE Publications, Inc.
doi: doi.org/10.4135/9781412986045.
Matthews B., Ross L. and Browns Books for Students. (2010). Research methods. Harlow: Longman, Pearson Education.
Lenette, C. (2022) ‘Cultural safety in participatory arts-based research: how can we do better?’, Journal of Participatory Research Methods, 3 (1).
doi: doi.org/10.35844/001c.32606.