Engage the Empathy

Engage the Empathy

One of the most interesting things about this exercise was that I had already had other classes with about half of my classmates, so I already had a pretty good idea of their backgrounds and interests. Obviously, the other half were complete wildcards as I had no prior experience with them. With that said, I anticipated that I would have a pretty good idea of what kinds of questions those I knew would ask, and in a few cases, I was right. But for more of them, I was absolutely off in some other ballpark, probably on an entirely different continent. And in the case of one in particular, I think I may have been in a different galaxy. If there is something farther away than that, it might actually be there, come to think of it. 

I did anticipate a handful of surveys that would ask one or more questions that would require more in-depth responses, but I was surprised at the number of questions that actually showed up across all the surveys. There were more than I would have thought, and for a few surveys, I found myself not really able to answer in an authentic way, mostly because the questions’ premises were not experiences that I have often, if ever. However, these were required answers, so I had to respon, knowing very well that what I said was not terribly helpful to my surveyor. I, too, included one question that required a slightly longer written reply, so this experience really got me thinking about how I had framed my own question. When I do this again, I know I will have that irrelevant question experience in my survey creation wheelhouse of this to consider. I’m no longer convinced that the way I framed my question was the best way to do it.

One survey had more extended questions than some, and to be honest, I felt a bit aggravated as I filled it out. I’m not sure how other people feel when they are required to complete a survey, but more often than not, I am not a big fan of them if they take too long to complete. My schedule is extremely tight; I work a 40 hour a week “day job,” teach at least two college classes a semester, serve on four committees, am taking two classes of my own, am the department go-to person for tech, and have a family whose needs are always the top priority above all of it. So while necessary at times, surveys can become a pet peeve. As I completed the one with multiple longer questions, I had to take a gut check, which was actually quite illuminating. I know others are strapped for time, too, and I also know other people are not big fans of surveys in the first place. So going through that bit of grumbling was probably a good thing to experience because I think it will help me keep that time crunch in mind when I need to create surveys in the future.

I did all but my own surveys and think that all of them included some kind of image to which the respondent could have a gut reaction. For some, I could see how the questions could offer some pretty good insights. An example might be the ones that showed scenes in a city, the mountains, the forest, the beach, and other places that may or may not be super busy and filled with people. I was able to see how those kinds of preferences might help one to understand if the respondent was a person who prefers quiet/noisy places or situations where there are few/many people. I had a harder time making that kind of connection with some of the images, though, and I came away having it in the back of my mind that when I do a survey, I need to be mindful of my own projections onto other people’s responses. To me, some of the images seemed like they could be very abstract or subjective from the survey taker’s viewpoint, so it makes sense that if I offer images like these, I could be interpreting the results through my own prism and be way, way off on what the respondent actually meant.

While several surveys did include questions that included checkboxes for preferences, I was surprised that few had either/or checkboxes for preferences that might be very black or white. I included a few such questions in my own survey because I had hoped to have them serve as the “casting a wide net” kinds of questions that might help me find some overarching context to the more involved questions. I’m not really sure how well the strategy worked, though. I thought I might recognize some kind of pattern(s), but what I found was what seemed to be one or two patterns with a whole lot of what Dan called “squish” in between that, by the way, I am trying to lean into. No. Nix that. I’m not trying to lean into it. I am looking for my wader boots and putting on water wings because that squish is making me think of the quicksand scenes from Gilligan’s Island. Yes, I’m that old, thank you.

One option that I recall seeing only once was the uploading of images, which I had not thought to do but think might be something I would consider, albeit in certain situations. For instance, I might not try it for my very early writers because many of my students are nontraditional learners who are returning to school after an absence from school of a few years to a few decades. Many of these returning students have not done much with technology other than sending emails, and it is very, very common for me to have to show learners how to just get into Google Docs, never mind actually do something in them. Asking these students to upload anything just might dissuade them from staying in the class. Retention is always a primary concern that our deans and department chairs watch carefully. I like teaching and try to keep my students, so I would think carefully about my audience before I added something like this to my survey.

All in all, I think it helped me a lot to see how others constructed their surveys with their own frames of reference and needs. Even though I think most of them would work quite nicely for their contexts, it made me far more aware of what my students might be needing from me when I do these kinds of things. When I created mine, I thought I had considered most of my learners’ possible feelings, abilities, and worries, but in trying out others’ surveys, I saw ways that I could have done things better, and I saw things I really should have included but did not. Doing others’ surveys also helped me to recognize considerations that I would not have anticipated, so it is entirely possible that in a different context, I would have built a survey that was ineffective or even worse, made learners feel negatively about the survey, the course, me, and school. These are all issues I want to avoid. I’m still not a huge survey fan, but I do see them a bit differently now than I did a week ago. I’m still not sure what will come of wading into the squish, and I do feel a tad intimidated at the feeling of intellectual quicksand. But I am going to try to stick with the spirit of empathy, try to trust the process, and try to take creative risks in hopes of designing learning opportunities that just might rock education.