Educators within post-secondary institutions receive input in the form of course evaluations from their students. The aim of receiving student input is to improve the teaching and learning experience for all. There are, however, inherent problems with the current methods of obtaining students' views through course evaluations. In this pilot study,…

High attrition rates in massive open online courses (MOOCs) have motivated growing interest in the automatic detection of student "stopout". Stopout classifiers can be used to orchestrate an intervention before students quit, and to survey students dynamically about why they ceased participation. In this paper we expand on existing…

The Total Survey Error (TSE) paradigm provides a framework that supports the effective planning of research, guides decision making about data collection and contextualises the interpretation and dissemination of findings. TSE also allows researchers to systematically evaluate and improve the design and execution of ongoing survey programs and…

As part of a larger study on school choice, researchers at the National Center on School Choice examined variation in leadership practices across school types, relying on a convenience matched sample of schools that included charter, magnet, private, and traditional public schools. A total of 284 schools agreed to participate in the study--116…

Like the vast majority of Australian universities, Flinders University (Flinders) collects feedback from students on the quality of teaching and learning through unit of study (topic) or classroom evaluations. Prior to 2009, survey instruments at Flinders were delivered via paper mode and in person to students in the classroom. In a drive for an…

Historically, responses to the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) were required to be collected by self-administered paper or online questionnaire to be eligible for official analysis. CEQ responses collected by telephone were excluded from the final analysis file to minimise the potential for bias due to mode effects: systematic variation in…

This paper describes the methodology used in a research study involving the collection of data through a Web-based survey, focusing on the advantages and limitations of the methodology. The Teacher motivation and Job Satisfaction Survey was administered to K-12 teachers. Many of the difficulties occurred during the planning phase, as opposed to…

This paper discusses the advantages and limitations of administering a survey questionnaire via the Internet (i.e., using both Web-based and e-mail platforms). It also addresses particular issues faced by one researcher as a reflection on the use of this methodology. Highlighted are problems associated with the use of listservs, e-mail addresses,…

A study was undertaken to solicit opinions from alumni on methods that might improve responses from graduate surveys. Two telephone surveys were conducted, one in 1991 which targeted the graduating classes of 1984 and 1989, and the second in 1994 among alumni of the classes of 1991 and 1993. In the 1994 survey information was gathered regarding…

Experimental studies of response rates to mail surveys were reviewed and differences in response by population type were described. Cases were selected for review if they were experimental studies that manipulated a response enhancement factor. Results suggest significant differences in typical response rates for different populations. Higher…

A study was conducted to compare the psychometric qualities of two identical forms of a survey administered in paper-and-pencil format and in Web format to 197 teachers randomly split into two paper and Web groups. While the rates of response were quite discrepant, the respective measures of reliability were extremely similar for the two versions…

The study examined how response rate to a mailed questionnaire was influenced by the socioeconomic status (SES) of respondents (high, middle, or low); amount of payment of a monetary incentive (none, $1, or $2); and time of payment (prepaid or promised on return of the completed questionnaire). Subjects were 125 adults in Cache County, Utah at…

Reviews of 227 comparative studies and 50 descriptive studies covering the time periods 1931-1999 and 1975-1999 respectively, revealed little change in response rates over time for postal mail surveys. Significant differences were found in comparative studies' response rates based on the academic area represented by the journal in which studies…

The question of how high a response rate is needed in order for telephone surveys to obtain data that accurately represent the entire sample, was investigated via reevaluating results of three previously published studies and reporting on three 1989 studies for the first time. The three previous studies indicated that, if the sample…

After completing a survey in 2001 for a nonprofit library network, the researcher used the database to study response rates and response consistency between two survey methods. Information on more than 1,400 potential respondents had been collected from the network's database and four other library databases. Half of the librarians (n=699) had…