On a scale of one to banana, how much do you like surveys?

If you've been following my blog at all, you'll know that I've been grappling with a slew of questions related to my field of practice. Recently I've focused in on a particularly wicked one. My wicked problem relates to the way that students in medical school have immense pressure to focus on exam scores, and that this focus detracts from possible time spent actually engaging with and applying the material they are learning, meaning their ability to understand and apply the material is falling short of expectations for clinical rotations and residency. (My gut says better understanding would also improve recall - something to research later.)

Now, I'm working on a survey to gather more information related to this problem; I plan to ask folks in my professional learning network to help me hone in on potential solutions. That means it's SURVEY TIME. And as I began writing my survey questions, I thought, "How hard could this be? I've written loads of surveys." But I've been doing it WRONG THE WHOLE TIME.

Did you know that surveys are hard work? There are a lot of considerations when putting a survey together, especially if you want to make sure you are gathering accurate, unbiased data. There are best practices for writing questions clearly, and there are techniques for framing and pacing your questions to help your survey takers to honestly engage with your questions.

Thankfully I had some great feedback from colleagues which helped me polish my survey for clarity, conciseness, and best practices. One piece of feedback was to set up my Likert scales with an even number of choices - this forces the survey taker to have an opinion with no option to be "neutral."

Now, to start getting answers! How hard could solving a wicked problem be?

References

Blumenthal, H. (2017, March 14). Wicked thoughts. Digital Insider. https://diginsider.com/tag/wicked-problems-have-no-stopping-rule/

Elmer, S. (2022, March 20). I've got 99 problems but this class I'm in wants me to focus on one. The (Budget) IT Guy. https://elmerst2.wixsite.com/theitguy

Elmer, S. (2022, April 3). A barrage of pretty good looking questions. The (Budget) IT Guy. https://elmerst2.wixsite.com/theitguy

Kruger, J., & Dunning D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. J Pers Soc Psychol. 77(6):1121–1134. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121.

Market Research Guy. (2020, July 7). Survey design best practices: How to write a good questionnaire. My Market Research Methods. http://www.mymarketresearchmethods.com/survey-design-best-practices/

McLeod, S. (2008). Likert scale definition, examples and analysis. SimplyPsychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/likert-scale.html

Vandergriendt, C., & Lawrenz, L. (2022, March 11). The Dunning-Kruger effect explained. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/dunning-kruger-effect

worldstoughestrace. (2020). How Hard Can It Be Bear Grylls GIF [GIF]. Tenor. https://tenor.com/view/how-hard-can-it-be-hard-bear-grylls-worlds-toughest-race-eco-challenge-fiji-gif-17817416