2.21 Surveys

As an exercise to get some experience writing/designing surveys, you analyzed the Writing Option pre-post survey for Writing Majors. This survey is (in theory) completed by all students when they BEGIN the writing option major (at the beginning of 2020=> the first course they should tak), and when they complete the Writing Option Major (at the end of 4817). Its purpose is to give the Department an understanding of:

• what students know, feel, and can do with respect to our student learning outcomes when they enter the program
• what students know, feel, and can do with respect to our student learning outcomes when they complete the program

We started our discussion of the Writing Option Major survey by organizing which SLOs were covered by which questions (see below).

Student Learning Outcome #1: students will produce essays through a series of drafts that include exploratory writing or talk, as well as revisions that include addition, deletion, substitution and rearrangement.

1,5,7, 12,14,15,16

 

Student Learning Outcome #2: students will identify central ideas/themes of a text through class discussion and writing.

2,4,6,7,8,11, 17

Student Learning Outcome #3: students will use two or more methodologies from English Studies to develop original research or creative products.

2,4,6,7,9,15

 

Student Learning Outcome #4: students will demonstrate ability to give a compelling oral presentation.

6,7,8,10,13, 18

Student Learning Outcome #5: students will connect ideas from classroom assignments to contemporary issues in class discussion and presentations.

2,3, 8,9, 19

 

This distribution seems to indicate that the SLOs are generally covered = but you had lots to say about the survey's effectiveness in terms of its repetitiveness, languge choices, and the scale for responding to the quesitons (strongly agree ->strongly disagree).  In particular, you noted that

 

• language in questions 4,6, 12, 13, and 14 is confusing
• questions 15, 11, 4, 13, and 9 cover the 5 learning outcomes - and the rest of the questions feel confusing because they repeat them in ways that make students wonder if they are missing something
• students want to reply from a "coherent" self - soquestions 1,5,12, and 14 are all about revision, and the wording is VERY similar - and this is confusing because some answers might be conflicting
• the "emotional " component of 2, 8, & 10 seems out of place = maybe save the "feeling" questions for 16-19 (have all the emotional questions in one place)
• different answering options would allow for more accurate information (maybe yes, no, I don't know)
• put the survey in plain English
• additional areas that should have questions= questions about using technology and collaborating with other writers

So I am still taking all this in, but it occurs to me that to do a good job revising this survey, we will need a "panel" of students. Anyone interested? We can talk about this in class.

For next class:

Read: Rhetoric of Teacher Comments on Student Writing Robin Martin

Blog 10: Reflect on what our discussion of the Writing Option major survey suggests about: 1) the way language works (think about Gee); 2) what kinds of information you can collect with surveys; and 3) what challenges researchers face when desigining quantitative instruments (things that are reduced to numbers => like surveys, "objective" tests and so on).

Thanks for your great participation today.  You provided clear concise feedback that we should be able to use.  Good analytic skills!