Testing, testing! Don’t send a survey without pretesting
Sheila here, writing once again with my survey design BFF Kim, of Leonard Research and Evaluation, LLC. Every book published contains a typo. OK, maybe not every book, but we would wager that most probably do. Every song recorded probably has a mistake or two as...
Feelings Matter: Exploring the Emotional Dimension of Professional Learning
As a teacher, trainer, or professional development provider, do you think about professional learning all day? Are you constantly grappling with instructional design and curriculum development, integrating learning strategies and ways to engage learners in your...
Promote Lasting Learning with Spaced Repetition
Spaced repetition, aka “distributed practice,” has gained significant attention and acclaim in recent years. This easy-to-do, evidence-based approach is one of our best tools for durable, long-lasting learning and provides a great complement to interleaving and...
Interleaving: A Hard Work Evidence-based Learning Strategy that Really Pays Off
When I started piano lessons at age five, I learned “songs” written for the right hand, and I learned to read the treble clef in music. Sometime later, my left hand was introduced to the keyboard, and I learned to read the bass clef. Even at a young age, I felt a...
Engaging Audiences is NOT About the Activities
Have you ever wondered how to truly engage your audience during a course or presentation?
Engaging audiences is a hot topic with countless experts offering an array of strategies to captivate audiences, both in virtual and in-person settings. It’s a good thing! As instructors, trainers, presenters, and speakers our primary focus needs to be on delivering what our audiences came for.
But what people are NOT talking about is the foundation for audience engagement. With a wide array of engagement strategies available, how do you decide which to use and when? Is it a matter of randomly sprinkling them in throughout a session? How do you tailor your approach to audience engagement during a 30-minute online talk vs a 6-hour on-site course?
Four steps for dealing with too many open-ended questions in survey design
Open-ended survey questions have the potential to yield high quality, rich, nuanced data that provide deep insights into people’s attitudes, behaviors, experiences, and more.
Sometimes we genuinely need open-ended survey questions to capture the information we’re looking for. Open-ended questions often feel easier to compose, and more natural to ask because they more closely mirror the way that we communicate with one another.
However, in survey format, open-ended questions can also be very challenging for respondents to answer.
Must-have Ingredients for a Solid Survey Invitation
A good, well thought out survey invitation can go a long way in preventing frustration. Centering respondents in survey design means paying attention to the respondent experience from start to finish–including the survey invitation. It isn’t difficult to write a compelling and helpful introduction to your survey.
5 Ways to Make Your Surveys More Respectful
Sheila here, writing again with my survey design bestie Kim Leonard and today we want to talk about respect. Respect gets little respect in most survey design textbooks, but we talk about it in over a dozen places in Designing Quality Survey Questions. People are...
Take a Moment, Thank a Teacher.
Twenty-five years had passed since my time in 4th grade when I decided to pay a visit to my teacher. Having moved to a new school, she was then an assistant principal. Stepping into the building, I easily located her in the front office. It only took a minute after...
Question makeovers: How two survey questions were improved and why it matters
We know that poorly written survey questions can lead to inaccurate data, cause survey fatigue, and result in non-response. Sheila here, writing again with my first-rate collaborator, Kim Leonard. In this post we share two examples of poorly worded survey questions...
Sheila B Robinson, Ed.D.
Inspiring talks and custom professional learning that meets your learning needs from a career educator and instructional designer.