Are you looking for information on how to create questionnaires, or surveys, for your graduate research? Here are a few suggestions for doing this.
Starting with your topic, explore it in two phases: reviewing the literature for previous attempts at examining your topic and then doing your own survey research.
Reviewing the Literature
The best place to start for finding journal articles is the ERIC database. It offers lots of options for refining your search. For example, you can limit your search to just ‘peer-reviewed’ articles. You can also limit to only articles that contain the full-text of a survey or questionnaire. Here’s how to do it: in ERIC’s ‘advance search’ box enter the number “160” and then change the type of search from “keyword” to “publication type”. This procedure then limits your search to only articles containing copies of the instrumentation used.
For other materials, consult the library’s online catalogue. Such materials as ‘books’, ‘government documents’ and University of Windsor ‘theses’ and ‘major papers’ are included. Theses and major papers previously done by Faculty of Education graduate students are an extremely valuable resource for ideas.
Developing Your Own Survey
You can do this in two ways. One option is to design a survey from scratch. Or you may choose to use a survey developed by someone else. The latter method is easier but it is also trickier in that you have to get the survey author’s permission for usage.
If you choose to design your own survey, you will probably develop it in collaboration with someone with expertise in this area, such as one of your instructors. You can also do background reading on the topic of survey research. Consulting the online catalogue will give you an idea of what resources the library has on your topic. You can also go to the CRC Circulating collection in the West Library Building and ‘browse’ in the “LB 1028” area, which is the shelf location for books on ‘survey research in education’.
Internet Links
Although lots can be found by ‘googling’, much of this information will not be useful for various reasons. But don’t totally rule out the ‘Net’. There are many useful sites on the Web that offers a comprehensive overview of all the major aspects of survey research, introducing you to different types of surveys, survey methods, and provides ‘commentary’ on such things as ‘reliability and validity’.
Data Analysis
If you need additional data for your survey, click on this Leddy Library guide, Selected Sources of Statistics on Education. This guide provides links to educational data for Ontario, Canada and international sources.
For assistance with any aspect of the data analysis process, contact the Leddy Library’s newest service office, The Academic Data Centre.
Further Assistance
For more information about anything mentioned in this guide, don’t hesitate to contact the library’s liaison librarian for education: Peter Zimmerman.
Peter Zimmerman
Education Librarian
pzimmer@uwindsor.ca
updated September 2010 | |