I have been drafting and redrafting my survey after sending it out to both colleagues, fellow PGCert students and tutors. To draft the initial survey I researched government guidance around gender and disability in the context of data collection, lifting the categorisations of disability and gender into my survey.
Below is my initial survey which you can see is weighted towards longer, written responses and includes questions around gender identity and trans history.
After attending Monday’s workshop with Carys and Federico, we discussed the collection of data and only collecting that which is necessary. I had initially felt it was best to collect as much information as possible to help inform my study, but realised that this can be invasive and unnecessary for participants, so removed my questions around trans history.
I also wasn’t aware of the need for an additional consent form. I decided to incorporate this into my survey by adding it to the front page as I don’t want participants to feel overwhelmed by paperwork. I have used a statement with a check box to consent, as I want my responses to be as anonymous as possible, and used some statements around disability from the Open University resource ‘Consent template for surveys’ (2023).
I went on to edit the survey further, sharing with peers and tutors. I received some really helpful and differing feedback, from which I have ‘cherrypicked’ and moulded into my survey. The survey takes a ‘funnel approach’ where I have left ‘more structured or pre-coded questions to a later stage’ (Opie, 2004). It was highlighted that many of the questions require written answers, rather than tick boxes, which may decrease student participation due to a range of factors, such as language differences, dyslexia, time constraints, engagement/focus. It was also highlighted that limiting some questions to checkboxes can also help improve clarity when analysing data.
I have now incorporated more tick-box responses, but retained some of the written answers, as I want students to have chance to express opinions by being less prescriptive or boundaried around their thoughts. Below is my final survey.
Anon (2023) ‘consent-template-for-surveys ’. Milton Keynes: The Open University.
Opie, C. (2004) ‘Research procedures’, in Doing Educational Research. London: Sage, pp. 100–101.