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Download a printable version of the student feedback survey:

End of Module Questionnaire (in English)

Ceistneoir ag Deireadh Moduil (as Gaeilge)

Overview

As the end of the semester looms, many of us will be aiming to obtain feedback from students on our modules. As you know, there are a variety of approaches that can be taken and a number of uses to which such feedback data can be put. When it comes to the use of questionnaires (only one of a range of approaches, of course), traditionally in this university many staff have either developed their own or used the old Quality Office form. The latter is somewhat 'long in the tooth' and perhaps emphasises a little too strongly general student 'satisfaction' rather than also exploring level of student engagement, participation and active learning. Further it is geared to feedback on individual lecturers rather than asking about the overall experience of the module as a whole.

To deal with these issues and provide the type of feedback that is of direct use to module leaders and teaching teams, a new shorter questionnaire is now available which you can directly copy into your Blackboard site if you so wish. This new questionnaire asks students for general comments on the module but also asks a little about how they have worked on the topic throughout the semester, thus reinforcing the key message that students are themselves responsible for their own learning and that this entails additional study other than simply lecture attendance.

Of course, if schools have already developed their own questionnaires, or indeed if you wish to adapt this new template/model, that is perfectly fine, but at least this version can be embedded into Blackboard straight away and should provide some worthwhile feedback on a range of issues.

This guide outlines how Instructors can deploy the End of Module Questionnaire in their Blackboard courses. Deploying the End of Module Questionnaire is a three©part process. Instructors must:

1: Firstly, download a .zip version of the survey
2: Then import the survey this zip file into their own Blackboard course; and
3: Finally, add the survey in a Content Area of a Blackboard course and make it available to their students.

Instructors can quickly view the aggregate results of the End of Module Questionnaire survey in the Gradebook area of the Control Panel. Instructions for the steps are outlined below.

1. Download the Survey
2. Import into your Blackboard Course 
3. Deploy the Survey to Students
4. How Students Access and Complete the Survey
5. How Instructors Access the Survey Results
6. Further Information
7. FAQ

Download the Blackboard Survey

Right click on the Blackboard Version of the End of Module Questionnaire link (in either English or in Irish) below.

Blackboard End of Module Questionnaire (In English)

Ceistneoir Deireadh Moduil (As Gaeilge)

Select 'Save Target As' and download the .zip file to a location on your computer.

Note: This is a Blackboard package file of the End of Module Questionnaire survey. This file must be imported into Blackboard to be viewed.

Import the Survey into a Blackboard course

You next need to import the downloaded zip file into the Survey Manager, within your own Blackboard course. To begin, log into Blackboard https://nuigalway.blackboard.com/

Go to Control Panel | Course Tools and to Tests, Surveys and Pools.

 

Once you have downloaded the End of Module survey you must now import it into your Blackboard module.

 

Once you click on the Import Survey button you will be taken to the next window where you can browse to your survey

Select your survey.

                                                 

Once you’ve clicked Submit you will be told that your action is successful.

 

Deploy the Survey to Students

Next you need to deploy the survey to your students. 

Go to the Content Area where you would like the survey to be located. In this case my Content Area has been called Surveys but in your case it might be called Assignments, Documents or anything relevant you have chosen.



You will be taken to the Create Survey window where you should select your survey and click Submit.

Now you will be asked to select some Survey Options.

Make sure that you choose to make your survey available.
 
 

You do not need to adjust any other settings on the Survey Options. However, you may be interested in what these options control. These are as follows:

Add a New Announcement for this Survey: Click Yes to create an announcement on the course front page information learners that the survey is now available and its location.

Multiple attempts: You do not need to select this option. If unchecked, the default option means that multiple attempts are not permitted. This Survey can then only be taken once by students.

Force Completion: If you enable this check box, learners must finish the survey the first time they open it. They cannot save their answers and return later. It is recommended you do not select this box, as if students accidently close the browser window or experience a network problem, they will be unable to re-enter and complete the survey.

Set Timer: The timer doesn't kick anyone who doesn't finish within the time limit, but it alerts you that the learner tool longer than the allotted time.

Display After/Until: Using these drop-down menus allows you to only have the survey visible to learners until the date and time you specify.

Password: Again, you can provide learners with a password, which they must enter before they can complete the survey. Using such an option is not really appropriate for this feedback gathering activity.

Self-assessment Options
Include this test in Grade Centre score calculations: "Grade Centre items excluded from summary calculations are also excluded from weighting. Also note that if some weighted items are included in calculations and other weighted items are not, grade weight calculations will be skewed" - This option DOES NOT need to be ticked in order to save the survey results. Student responses will be recorded and accessible to you regardless of whether this box is ticked or not.

Feedback Options:
Choose between the following:

Status Only: When learners finish, they see only that they completed the survey

Detailed Results: After completing the survey, learners see the questions and their responses.

Survey Presentation:

Selecting the All at Once option is the default option. When the survey opens, learners see all the questions and can answer them in any order they wish

You will now see your survey located successfully in your Content Area.

The students can click on the survey and take the survey.

How Students Access and Complete the Survey

Your students will access the survey in your content area and will view the survey description that you entered above.

On accessing the survey, your students will be presented with a list of 30 questions and the following default instructions:

Note: that Instructors can change these instructions by accessing Control Panel-> Survey Manager-> Select the survey Modify button, ->and then edit the survey instructions

How Instructors Access the Survey Results.

To access the survey results go to the Control Panel and follow the following steps.

Click on Grade Centre | Full Grade Centre



When in the Grade Centre, click on the down arrows option on the column entry of the survey i.e. 'End of Module Questionnaire'. The following options will be displayed:



Assessment Attempt Details

Select the Assessment Attempt Details link to view a percentage breakdown of student responses to each survey question. All text responses to Short Answer Questions will be listed on this page. An example of such an output is illustrated below:



Download Results

Alternatively, if you wish to process the survey data in another software package, select the Download Results link to export the survey findings in either comma‐delimited format (.CSV) or as a tab‐delimited file (.XLS). Either format can be imported directly in a software programme such as MS Excel for further processing. To download data in this format, do the following:

• Click on the Tab radio button, or the Comma radio button to save results as a .txt file. Bother of these file types can easily be opened with Microsoft Excel.
  
• Determine the download format for each question answered ( By Question and User).  
  
• Click the Click to Download Results link .
  
• Minimise your Blackboard browser window, and open Excel.
  
• Go File>Open and Browse for the downloaded file, to open it. You will be prompted again to say whether the file is Tab or Comma delimited. Follow this wizard until the file opens within Excel.
  
• Consider the following points when analysing results:
  •  Each row represents an assessment attempt.
  • Questions and answers are reported in the order presented to the Student. If an assessment includes random questions than each line in the results will report questions in a different order (question 1 for one Student may be question 5 for another Student).
  • Survey results will not show user data for each attempt. 
  •  Results from a user with a course role of Instructor, Grader, or Teaching Assistant will not be reported.

Further information

Find out more about Teaching Evalution at NUI Galway

For any further assistance please email blackboardnuigalway.ie

FAQ

Is the Blackboard survey anonymous?

Answer: You cannot access individual students responses on Blackboard .

With Blackboard's Survey Manager, you can create non-graded course or module evaluations or instructional assessments. There are two features of surveys which are relevant to concerns regarding anonymity:

Surveys are anonymous.  Responses are collected, but an individual learner's answers cannot be retrieved. However, you can see how many students have completed the survey, and identify those who have not.

Surveys are unscored. No points are awarded for completing a survey.

Two issues arise from the fact that you can identify which students have completed the feedback survey:

a) Firstly, how can you ensure anonymity of student's responses? There is a document available on http://www.nuigalway.ie/celt/documents/evaluation_ofteaching.pdf  which offers some advice. It suggests that when collecting feedback from students, lecturers should aim for a response rate of 60% and should treat with extreme care the results obtained where the response rate is below 30% (Brennan and Williams, 2004; Richardson, 2003). This would suggest that it is better to wait to pull a report in Blackboard when there is a higher response rate, thus also helping to negate any issues of identifying respondents with a smaller sample size.

b) Secondly, participation in a feedback mechanism for students is voluntary, so another issue which arises here is whether students may feel pressured into providing feedback, by lecturers where the response rate is low. Whilst lecturers can encourage participation, students should not be coerced into providing feedback. This point is important, particularly as it is possible to see who has and has not elected to give a response.

Instructors do not have access to students individual responses in the Gradebook. If you click on the student's survey in the Gradebook (i.e. via the green checkmark, or the lock icon), you will NOT be able to see the individual student's checked responses, even under the View Option (highlighted in the screenshot below). Therefore, you do not need to worry about clicking onto a student's response, as you will never be able to see individual responses- only whether they completed the survey or not.

I have a small class and I am concerned about being able to identify non-respondants

Answer: Recommend to non-participants to submit a blank response

You may wish to inform students that should they not wish to participate in the survey or be identified as a non-respondent, that they can just enter the survey and click SUBMIT, without answering any of the questions. You may decide on this option if your class size is small, and you have concerns over the possibility that non-participants might be identifiable.

Why are some of the survey responses locked?

Answer: Remind students to Submit their responses

You may be curious about the meaning of the lock in the Gradebook. This occurs when the student partially attempts to complete the survey, and it then becomes locked, as illustrated in the screenshot below:
                      
The settings on the survey (as illustrated in the screenshot below) indicate that the student can only hit SUBMIT once. Until they carry out this action, their survey attempt will display as an "Attempt in Progress



If you see several locks on student's responses, you might wish to give a friendly reminder to them in class to progress to ensure they have fully submitted their feedback, by clicking on the SUBMIT button, if they wish for you to receive their feedback and comments.

If you have any additional queries, please contact blackboardnuigalway.ie for further help.

    

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