Survey Tools: A Compass Pointing you in the Right Direction

One of the most important roles of a Teacher Librarian is to ensure that user needs are being met. What better way to determine what users need than to ask? Surveys are a compass that can point you in the right direction and there are a plethora of easily accessible online survey tools including Zoomerang, surveygizmo, Kwik Surveys, Polldaddy, Wufoo, and Poll Everywhere to name a few. Many of these tools offer a free option that allows you to create a limited number of surveys with a maximum number of questions. I conducted a paper survey as a part of the Collection Evaluation of my school library last year, but was eager to attempt using a paperless method. I chose to explore Google Forms because my school uses a Gmail based system for staff communication, and SurveyMonkey, as this is a tool I have heard spoken of frequently.

Google Forms

Through my navigation of the Google universe a few weeks ago, I discovered that you could create surveys using Google Forms through Google Apps for Education. This is a free tool which offers an unlimited amount of surveys and space for well over 1,000 responses. I created "Technology Questionnaire" (below) that I could send out through our Gmail based staff email to survey topics of interest for in-service workshops I hope to lead to share what I've learned from taking LIBE 477. I plan to send it out to staff after spring break, but took the survey myself to test the process.

The process is quite easy. You simply go to Google Docs and create a new form. You work on blank template and select from a number of questions types including multiple choice, check-box, paragraph, choose from a list, scale, or grid.  Once you are satisfied with your questions you can edit the look of your survey by choosing from a wide range of themes; I chose the Digital theme. To share your survey you can email it or embed it onto a blog or website. I tried both methods and received the emailed version promptly, but found the embedding option a bit tricky as I had to re-size the survey to make it fit my blog. The data of completed surveys is then tracked for you in a Spreadsheet. Once the surveys have all been taken, the Summary Report visualizes your data in a number of ways, including pie charts, bar graphs, and more. The ease of use, wide selection of choices, and summary report were all features that I really liked about this tool; I would definitely use it again.

Survey Monkey

My son's school sent out a Survey Monkey survey via email last fall regarding a development campaign. I found this to be an effective and easy format to use and preferred it to a paper survey which would have required that I make the effort to return the survey to the office (the chances of this being slim for a mother of 2 year-old twins and a 4 year-old). Although I am not currently working as a Teacher Librarian, one of my first goals in a new job as a TL would be to conduct a thorough Collection Evaluation to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the library and set goals for the future. “Collection assessment... provides library administrators with a management tool for adapting the collection, an internal analysis tool for planning, a tool to respond systematically to budget changes, and a communication tool and data for resource sharing...” (Arizona State Library) Thus, I explored Survey Monkey as an option for surveying staff, students, parents and community members. I designed a library use survey that could easily be emailed out or embedded into a blog or website, as I have done here. Click here to take survey.

All in all, the process of creating a survey using Survey Monkey is very similar to creating a survey using Google Docs with a few differences.The Basic Free Plan Survey Monkey offers is quite limited compared to Google Forms, allowing only 10 questions per survey and 100 responses. However, Survey Monkey offers many more options when it comes to question types than Google Forms. Although Survey Monkey does offer some options for editing the look of your survey, they are really minor changes compared the themes offered in Google Forms. One feature that Survey Monkey does have which Google Forms does not, is a question bank from which you can select ready made questions on a certain topic or use them as models to create your own. I searched through the "Education" topic and found only one question related to library use, but did model many of my questions after the banked questions regarding schools. The fact Survey Monkey's Free Plan is so limited and that the next plan costs $19 per month, would cause me to use Google Forms again before using Survey Monkey.


Other Applications of Online Surveys

I focused primarily on using surveys in the process of Collection Evaluation. However, there are others ways online survey tools can be used in education. Surveys can be used:

•     as teacher/course evaluations
•     to survey the parent community on a particular school issue
•     to collect feedback about an event, activity or field trip
•     as a Get-to-Know form given to students at the start of the year
•     to gauge student knowledge about a topic before teaching a unit
•     to have students collect data for projects
•     as practice tests or to assess student knowledge
•     use Poll Everywhere to poll students in class while teaching a lesson, as my classmate did during her math class

Read about Tonia Lovejoy's use of online survey tools with her Grade 6 students. Whatever the application might be, online surveys are another tool educators can add to their tool belt of free online Web 2.0 resources.

Question: How do you survey tools in your educational practice?

Works Cited:

Arizona State Library (2011). Collection Assessment & Mapping. Retrieved from http://www.lib.az.us/cdt/collass.aspx

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