The Community of Inquiry › Forums › CoI Research – Discussion Forum › Tips on getting high response rate on CoI survey?
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Helen Dolan 9 years, 9 months ago.
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January 20, 2015 at 12:36 am #1045
Hello,
I would like to use the CoI (Community of Inquiry) survey for research on an online class and would like to get a high response rate. Does anybody have any tips on getting a high response rate from students in an online class? The pool of possible participants is very small (one online class that I’m interested in) so I would like to get very high response rate.
As an aside, I recently tried to recruit target students to fill out the CoI survey and only 1 student in the class replied. (Part of the problem was probably timing, and that they were also asked to fill out the course evaluation which was emphasized much more. Students were invited to fill out the CoI survey, if they were interested in helping out with this optional research project. They were also sent a reminder email).
If it helps to have an idea about the students in this fully online class: they are over 18 and are taking this fully online, asynchronous course to learn the basics of how to teach English. An idea would be to appeal to these students who are learning to be teachers about the value of the CoI concepts. Since the CoI survey should be anonymous, it seems like it would be difficult to really require it as part of the class, although maybe there is a way to do that on the course management system somehow?
Another idea: to motivate people to complete the CoI survey, maybe the anonymous results could be shared with the class? I’m not sure if that would be very appropriate, comfortable for the teacher of the online course, or would be OK with IRB… Also, the curriculum of the course is already quite full and focuses on preparing them to teach English normally face-to-face.
Any tips would be most welcome! I’m very eager to hear your ideas on getting a high response rate on the CoI survey in this online class. Thank you very much in advance!
Merica
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January 26, 2015 at 2:22 am #1063
Hi Merica:
I don’t have any experience about doing this online, but the survey is very similar to the needs assessment I do in my face to face trainings. We send it out with the registration form as part of their registration. That is usually motivating enough as they want to take the course. I would caution the wording however so it doesn’t feel manipulative – perhaps: Thank you for your interest in the online course on the basics of teaching English. Please complete the following registration form and short survey to give me a better understanding of your expectations for the course. Once I have received the forms, you’ll be sent a confirmation of registration.” or something like that.
I do share a high level summary of the results at my first session and then have them talk to a partner, then introduce themselves to start to build an atmosphere of safety for learning. As you mentioned this was research, it may not be doable. Is this something you think might be adaptable to work online? You mentioned a full curriculum – perhaps it could be posted for them to have a look at if you have a site that they check into.
Good luck,
LeslieYou must be logged in to reply to this topic. -
January 26, 2015 at 3:34 am #1064
Hi Leslie and others,
Thank you very much for your reply and suggestion, Leslie! However, the Community of Inquiry (CoI) survey needs to be given at the end of the semester to measure students perceptions of teaching, social, and cognitive presence in the online class. I was just reading a dissertation that I saw referenced on this website (Hall, 2013, retrieved from https://coi.athabascau.ca/publications/coi-in-dissertations/), and it looks like that researcher used the CoI survey as the main final course evaluation, just adding a few additional custom questions. The online program that I am researching already has its own end of course and teacher evaluation, but I just got the idea that maybe I should try to integrate it with the CoI survey. To do that, I’d need to try to eliminate the overlapping questions current end of course evaluation. The CoI survey has already been validated on it’s own, but if I intersperse the CoI survey with other questions, I wonder if that would decrease the validity of the CoI questions. I suppose I had better try to consult with a survey expert. It would be really helpful to find out what other CoI researchers have done. I’ll also need to convince the program of the value of the CoI survey results since they are weary of asking students too many questions in the end of course evaluation because they want to get a high response rate.Does anybody else have suggestions on getting a high response rate for the CoI survey in an online course?
Many thanks!
MericaYou must be logged in to reply to this topic.-
January 26, 2015 at 5:59 am #1065
Hi Merica:
Sorry for the confusion – jet lag! I thought you were referring to the survey in the appendix of the text which is similar to the one Norm gave us at the beginning of this term. I’ll have a second look now that I realize what you are referring to (I see it has a linked tab on this site as well) and add any thoughts once I’ve reviewed. Thanks!
LeslieYou must be logged in to reply to this topic.
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January 27, 2015 at 2:07 am #1070
That’s OK. Thank you very much for your reply, Leslie. Here’s a link to the CoI survey: https://coi.athabascau.ca/coi-model/coi-survey/ I cannot attach it here.
By the way, from the way you wrote, it sounds like you work with or are taking some kind of course with Norm?
Thanks again to you and anybody else out there reading! I’m all ears for any suggestions on trying to increase response rates to the CoI survey in a small online class.
Merica
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February 1, 2015 at 2:29 am #1077
Hi Merica,
I came upon this research that mentions alterations to the COI survey with specific intent to measure social presence.
Adapting the Community of Inquiry Survey for an Online Graduate Program: implications for online programs
SWAPNA KUMAR School of Teaching and Learning, College of Education, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
ALBERT D. RITZHAUPT School of Teaching and Learning, College of Education, University of Florida, Gainesville, USAMay be of some value to your questions.
Michael
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February 2, 2015 at 4:13 am #1078
Thank you very much for sharing this research, Michael!
The more I think about it, I think that I should use the COI survey as it, since it has already been shown to be valid and reliable. The big question for me is getting students in a small, fully online, asynchronous course to agree to fill it out. I think I am going to try to get permission to embed it on the course management system (CMS) so that it would be easy for students (as opposed to an email with a link, which they could easily ignore). I know that the CMS that is used for this course can be used for an anonymous survey.
So now I’m thinking about the wording before and/or after the COI survey to try to encourage this small population of online students to complete the survey.
Are they any researchers out there, or people who have come across research which embeds the COI survey in the course materials? If so, it would be very useful to see how they worded it to encourage participation and show that it’s for research. I will need to revise my IRB application and get this approved before posting it.
Any tips/ideas are most welcome!
Thanks again!
MericaYou must be logged in to reply to this topic.
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