What's different when you present a course evaluation survey on a mobile phone rather than on a desktop computer or paper?
As many delegates to a course or event will have Internet mobile phones, it can be great to give a course evaluation survey at the end of the event, and get rapid and immediate feedback. Or you can hand out iPod Touch devices for people to use to answer a survey at the venue.
Here are ten good practice suggestions when you are doing such course evaluation or level 1 surveys.
Use a short survey (e.g. 5 to 10 questions). People are on the move, and won't bother with a long survey. Limit open-ended questions as people don't type a lot on mobiles.Use simple item types like Likert Scale. Avoid Flash - it doesn't work on Apple mobile phones.Keep bandwidth usage low. Not everyone has an unlimited data plan, and it could be costing them to take your survey.Ensure each question will fit on the page, without scrolling. Devote the screen real estate to showing the questions, keep branding and frills to a minimum.Avoid pop-ups and new windowsIf you can, use an app for Apple or Android, so that people don't have to type in a URL to get to the survey. (See here for more on what apps can do.)If you have to use a URL for the survey, make it something with very few characters but memorable not nonsense (e.g. http://bit.ly/survey1234).
For more general best practices on course evaluation surveys including how to get better response rates, see an article by my colleague Greg Pope, a psychometrician, on the Questionmark blog.
