As we've come to learn more about how important it is to craft a well-written survey it has made me far more critical of surveys I take. Whether they're for my peers in other classes or from websites or retail outlets I pay attention to how and exactly what they're asking me. It also made me disappointed when a company, brand or in this case, a school, I respect puts out a poorly done survey. The following screen shot is from the second half of a survey I took for extra credit in SJMC.
Notice at the top it has instructions for the survey-taker "Please mark the choice..." but then in parentheses are what must have been instructions for the person putting the survey into the web application "Use semantic-differential scales. Also try to mix these in with other items in the survey so that it is not totally obvious what we are doing". This is pretty unfortunate because then it makes it entirely super obvious what they are doing. Also it's just disappointing to see how little care was taken when putting together his survey. This is something that was sent directly to me in an email to take. Also the first question doesn't even have all the options entered/it's not completed. The rest of the survey was fine for the most part except I believe for a few typos.
I love and respect SJMC, I just hope it isn't making mistakes like these on a more witnessed level. It's unprofessional and simply unacceptable.
Learning Surveys, Critiquing Surveys
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