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Author's profile photo John Kleeman
John Kleeman
December 15, 2010 1 minute read

Mobile Assessments Part 1: Top tips on delivering effective course evaluation surveys on mobile devices

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.

 

Questionmark itouch screenshot of course evaluation survey

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 windows
  • If 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).

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    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.

     

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        Author's profile photo Tobias Hofmann
        Tobias Hofmann
        " [...] use an app for Apple or Android, so that people don't have to type in a URL to get to the survey."
        The app has to be developed, distributed and still be accessed by the user. As a HTML page, the link can be distributed by e-mail and accessed by browser.

        br, Tobias

        Author's profile photo John Kleeman
        John Kleeman
        Blog Post Author
        Yes, I agree. Thanks for the point and to allow me to clarify:

        An app is best if you are delivering on your own iPod Touch systems that you hand out to attendees or if you are delivering multiple surveys to the same individuals (or using the device to deliver quizzes too).

        But for a one off survey for a participant who will only be taking one survey, an HTML page with a URL is better.