Student Surveys

We needed to survey existing students to assess how well the existing Distance Education classes were working. The survey results are important to provide data for the design of the new class. Mari Guillermo wanted us to survey her current students in Guam. Because of the short time frame, we designed a survey for administration on the web.

After interviewing the SMEs about actuals and optimals within the existing classes, and the optimals for the new class, we identified many factors to include in the survey. In fact, there were more factors than we could cover in the survey without it being overly long for the students to take. We decided to have this as a first survey, with possible additional surveys later for the remaining question areas. We are also planning to interview students in Mari’s Grossmont College class, Disability and Society, which is taught as conventional classroom instruction, to determine their perceptions of how it could be presented as a Distance Education class.

Survey design

For the students in Guam, we wanted to know what the students’ feelings were about the features of Distance Education. The first part of the survey listed 17 areas, and asked the students to rank their feelings for each one on a 5-point scale going from "Like very much" to "Dislike very much." We gave 3 text boxes for them to write in additional features, also with the 5-point ranking for each.

We wanted to know how important the students thought each of several possible changes to our future distance classes was. The second part of the survey listed 8 possible changes, and asked the students to indicate how important each one was on a 5-point scale going from "Very important" to "Very low importance." We gave 3 text boxes for them to write in additional possible changes, also with the 5-point scale for each.

Finally, we wanted to give the students an opportunity for comments. The third part of the survey had 3 questions, each with a text box. The questions asked what types of learning activities they thought were best suited for Distance Education, any other comments about their Distance Education experiences, and any other comments they thought would be helpful to improve our classes.

We produced the survey in web format, put it on the web, and gave the URL to Mari for her students to access the survey. See Appendix A for Student Needs Assessment version 1.0. To view the survey on the web, the URL is

https://members.tripod.com/~chuck77/interwork/student1.htm

 Results

We received 28 student surveys from the 42 students in the class. We calculated mean scores for each of the questions with 5-point scale responses. A lower number indicates the better ranking. Highlights of the findings are given below. [In the Final Report, see Appendix, Student Needs Assessment Results, for more details.]

Part I. Feelings about the features (1=Like very much, 2=Like)

Most liked (1.25 or less)

The most-liked features were not design elements of the program, but access to educational opportunity and taking responsibility.

10. Increased access to educational opportunity 1.07

11. Taking responsibility 1.21

Liked but worst scores (1.75 or more)

Features with the worst scores include features that the SMEs thought were favorites of the students: use of audiotapes and videos, and message boards. The chats which the SMEs want to diminish in use scored better than the message boards that the SMEs want to have to mostly replace the chats.

15. Use of audiotapes 2.11

6. Message boards 2.00

14. Use of videos 1.89

3. Interaction with teacher via computer 1.82

5. Chats 1.80

 

There were 38 responses for write-in questions 18A, 18B, and 18C,

"Write-in any additional features of Distance Education."

Of the additional features that students listed, ones receiving more than one listing were:

time allocation (5 times)

self-paced (3 times)

email (2 times), and

different points of view (2 times).

[In the Final Report, for a summary of write-in responses, see Appendix. For the complete text of write-in responses, see Appendix.]

Part II. Importance of possible changes (1=Very important, 2=Somewhat important)

Most important

The feature ranked as most important is the message board, concurring with the thoughts of the SMEs.

24. Message board 1.48

Somewhat important but worst scores (1.75 or more)

The worst scores were for access to past lectures on the web as audio and video, access to past video conferences on the web, increased face-to-face video conferencing, and audio on the web.

21. Past audio 2.07

19. Face-to-face video conferencing 1.96

22. Past video lecture 1.92

23. Past video conferences 1.85

25. Audio on the web 1.75

There were 25 responses for write-in questions 27A, 27B, and 27C,

"Write in any additional possible changes for Distance Education."

Of the additional possible changes that students listed, the one that received more than one listing was:

email (3 times).

Part III. Open-ended questions.

There were 24 responses for write-in question 28,

"In your experience with Distance Education, what types of learning activities are best suited for Distance Education, as opposed to traditional classroom instruction?"

Of the learning activities that students listed, ones receiving more than one listing were:

research (4)

listserv (4)

discussions (2)

email (2), and

availability of information (2)

There were 23 responses for write-in question 29,

"Please make any other comments about what you have experienced with Distance Education."

Comments included that the experience was:

"a Godsend"

"great"

"totally new and awesome",

and one person "loved it so much.".

Comments receiving more than one listing were:

inaccessibility of computer (2)

need for computer proficiency and assistance (2).

There were 20 responses for write-in question 30,

"Please make any other comments that you think would be helpful to improve our Distance Learning classes."

Comments receiving more than one listing were:

need for computer access (6)

need more time (2) - for discussion, in classroom

One student was extremely frustrated because of computer problems in trying to access the survey.

Conclusions

Based on the surveys, we should probably not produce media elements for the web page other than still graphics. There are mixed results over the need for chat rooms versus discussion boards. We should not do a frames version this semester because of potential problems for students using assistive technology.

Recommendations

Items that were listed above as receiving numerous student responses should be used to develop the possible next survey in order to focus in on the situations described in their write-in responses.

Future surveys may be given to address additional questions that could not be included in the first survey.