The Institutional Research Department thinks that my students would be concerned about their grades being affected by their responses to a survey. Therefore a survey may not be given until the grades for the semester in question have been submitted. I looked around out there and there is some evidence that students don't believe that survey results are anonymous even though I could not find papers on that subject exclusively (http://oea.uchc.edu/tips_creating/index.html;http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ748405&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ748405). The surveys may, after all, include unique identifiers. This belief would taint my results. Also, there is the Media Equation to consider.
Though disappointed, I have learned about writing a research proposal and about writing surveys. I am definitely going to include both in the final paper submission to Dr. Ferdig.
The Institutional Research Department did say it would be OK if I sent an e-mail to the students after the class was over and asked them for the following:
"Hello 'name of student',
Would you help me out? I would like to know, as an Instructor, what I could do to make online courses that I teach more engaging. In particular, I would like to stimulate participation in live office hours and in the discussion. Would you please take a few minutes to offer any suggestions that would help me do this? Say anything you want that might help me. You won't hurt my feelings or offend me (after all, thousands have tried and failed). I just want to help my present and future students get as much as they can out of any course I teach.
Thank you in advance,
Suzon"
This won't help my paper but maybe it will help me.
Suzon
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I'm impressed with your level of effort. And you're right, even though you didn't get to administer your survey as intended, you have learned a lot about survey design and research procedure.
ReplyDeleteNothing ventured, nothing gained, I think you did a good job in a short time. Maybe it would have been fun to do it without asking :-)
ReplyDeleteI would like to see you actually do this after the semester. If you do and can get permission, I'd send to my class as well. I've got some students that I know will respond.
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