Students Survey So far....

I created my Dance Survey for students and handed them out leaving two weeks for the hand in date, ensuring I had covered a range of ages and had a proportionate number of boys and girls.

I gathered the selected students together and gave them an explanation as to why I was handing out the surveys. I highlighted the fact that there were no names on the surveys a number of times and explained that I would not know who had written what so I wanted them to be as truthful as possible as that would be most helpful to me. I stressed the importance of the hand in date also and that they were not to be given back to me but put in the drop box in reception so again I would have no idea who’s was whose. A number of the students were very excited by the fact that they had been asked to fill out the surveys which is not something I had anticipated, and they wanted to do them there and then.

Ideally I had wanted the students to take the surveys home and complete them in their own time away from the school but with so many asking to do them there and many saying if they took them home they would probably forget to bring them back I quickly had to decide what would be the best course of action to take. I knew if they completed them there then the response rate would be much better but I didn’t want them to influence each other’s answers. I had however also seen on Stephie’s blog that she was struggling to get surveys filled out by her student participants and so came to the follow decision.

I gave the students a choice, if they preferred to take them home and do them in their own time then that was fine (and again stressed the importance of bringing them back, so suggested they keep them in the files that they bring each week). Or if they wanted to do them there they would be supervised during break time by the principal and could find a quiet corner to do them and then drop them in the box. I said that I didn’t want them doing them in groups or with anyone else as answers needed to be honest and their own opinions, they were happy with this and many students took it upon themselves to complete them during the break time.

The hand in date has now passed and I have been really pleased with the response, having received 81% back. Now it’s time to record the information and analyse the results to see how I want to focus my interview questions and further observations.