Survey Analysis

Sharyn Freindlich

Research in Lit and Lang

Survey Analysis

3/13/13

Surveys are questionnaires handed out to a group of people to receive feedback and changes if necessary.  It takes a lot to make a survey look appealing to the viewers, so the questions have to be straightforward and to the point. This survey would definitely be considered a discourse community because these questions were meant to be answered by english majors.

If the questioner needed answers about the English program at kean, why would we want to ask math majors? It doesn't make any sense right? It would be a big mistake because the feedback would not be relevant at all because what do math majors know about the english department?

The survey we were given during class would probably be difficult for me if i had to take it before this semester. For example, number six on the survey reads “I am able to use discourse analysis to explore research questions.”  Most people taking this survey will ask, what in the world is discourse analysis? This is a problem when it comes to surveys it isn't clear enough for the general public to understand. I am just learning about discourse now, in a 3000 level class. If students were given this survey as freshman in only 1000 level courses people would just guess or skip the questions they do not understand and that ruins the whole point of the survey.

Another thing is that honestly students are lazy these days. we have the thought that if we aren't being graded on it, then it just doesn't matter. People tend to fill in any bubbles just to get the survey done. Not many people actually sit and go through all the questions. When we were discussing the making of surveys in the class it was great to get input from everyone. The truth is that people don't like surveys. As students, we don't see the change it does.