To survey or not to survey, that is the (initial) question. If you have a large target audience, and there are multiple questions to ask them, then an online quiz or form might be better than trying to decide on an outcome via email or chat messages with crisscrossing replies. But where to go next? Microsoft Office’s Forms (or just ‘Forms’) lets you create appealing and accessible surveys, with a good range of question types and results to display what people think.
Your approach
Want to register interest in an event or create a short quiz to prime students for a seminar? Forms allows you to gather feedback asynchronously from whoever you like, including UWE staff, students and externals.
Forms is accessible and best used asynchronously. If choosing this, you won’t be sharing survey results with a live audience (for this, use Mentimeter) and probably aren’t undertaking heavyweight research (Qualtrics could be your solution here). And Forms doesn’t integrate with Blackboard’s Grade Centre, whereas a Xerte quiz does.
Accessing Forms
If MS Forms is right for you, sign in to your Office 365 space and click on the ‘Forms’ button from the App launcher, found at the top left corner of the window. Then choose ‘New Quiz’ or ‘New Form’.
Tip: If you choose ‘New Quiz’, you will have access to an additional Settings menu option to show results to responders automatically, once they have completed their form.
Question types and sharing
After entering a succinct title and description for your form, you will be presented with several question types by clicking the ‘Add new’ button. Here’s a reference list for ease:
- Choice (can allow multiple choices)
- Text (allows free text entry)
- Rating (e.g., 1-5 stars)
- Date (opens a calendar)
- Ranking (click and drag options in list-format)
- Likert (assess preferences on a continuum)
- Net Promoter Score (0-10 marketing tool)
An advanced feature is ‘Add branching’, accessed via the ‘More options’ (‘”¦’) button to the right of questions and section headers. Your survey then branches off to pose follow-up questions when responders enter certain information.
After adding your questions, fill in your survey using the ‘Preview’ function. You can test how your results are displayed in the ‘Responses’ tab, at the top. Now you’re ready to clear your previous responses and send the form to the appropriate range of people via the Share menu, top right.
Encouraging responses
To make your form more appealing, consider changing the default theme and background. Adding a video introduction via URL link can also encourage participation, while accessibility is enhanced by the built-in ‘immersive reader’ function.
Adding sections via the ‘Add new’ button will break up the questions into appropriate themes, perhaps making the form seem shorter than it really is if you have lots of questions to ask. Theming, sections, and an appropriate variety of questions will make your surveys more interactive.
If you would like to discuss the design or other aspects of your digital surveys and quizzes, please contact the Digital Learning Service in CATE at dls.cate@uwe.ac.uk.
Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels