Ask meaningful questions – Lesson 5

The most recent survey I took was great! It was so good in fact, it didn’t come to mind when I thought of surveys because I’ve found them to be well …a waste of time and requested when you’re exhausted. Following a course on influencing without authority I was asked to provide the instructor with feedback. The survey included questions on ease of learning the material, pace and content. My pet peeve is when questions focus on logistics when the fundamental delivery or content is flawed.

This survey started with the likert scale with questions on value and probability to recommend it to a co-worker, then moved into the ‘real’ questions. Included were open ended questions that I mentioned earlier and a request for 4 pieces of feedback, with a minimum of 2 suggested improvements. I  found the ask for 4 pieces to be helpful, so many times the blanket “comments” is easy to brush off at the end of the day. The instructor was also very adamant about how the feedback was used to create the course into the state it is now.  Finally the survey was handed out at the 2nd break rather than at the end of the day, providing attendees with enough time and energy to provide meaningful feedback.

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3 thoughts on “Ask meaningful questions – Lesson 5

  1. Great Blog, I agree with you those surveys that are taken after courses are at a bad time, your brain is exhausted and the last thing you want to do is answer insignificant questions about how much you enjoyed the course.
    I really enjoyed the description of the survey you mention, I do not think that I have ever encountered a survey like that. I think that if there is a better process of choosing the survey, questions, and time of delivery it may change the experience that you have with surveys.
    Thank you for sharing.

  2. Hi.

    I really enjoy course surveys as well, and it sounds like from your experience, the assessor not only considered the questions, but the time of when to provide the survey. This tends to be very critical, since I have found myself rushing through a survey that is provided toward the end (to hurry up an leave–hehehe), versus completing it while still in place – big difference 🙂

    Thanks for sharing!

    Olga

  3. You raise a good point. Taking a survey when you are tired or your give-a-shit-meter is running empty will certainly skew results. Being forced to take a survey usually doesn’t offer up the best results either. I can certainly attest to pencil whipping a survey or 50 that I simply didn’t care enough about to put any effort into. It’s hard to care about giving someone something for nothing sometimes. Or maybe it’s just my very practiced apathy. When it comes to surveys, I certainly appreciate the chance to express my thoughts freely and not just click a bunch of circles. But then you wonder, who if anyone, actually reads or cares about it?

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