Assignment
Five: You will design and test a short survey.
Include a variety of question types such as scale rating, short answer, and
open-ended. You will submit the original version and the modified version based
on the testing of the survey with four individuals. You will post your
information on your blog.
Survey topic: DCS Healthy Snack Program
Survey purpose:
Determine student attitudes toward healthy eating and the overall effectiveness
of the healthy eating initiative.Survey audience: DCS students, grades 7-12
Survey format: Online component (final draft 15 questions), paper
component (5 questions)
I decided to try the survey creation with my original
program, the Wednesday morning snack program at our school, as it is something
I am getting more familiar with. My interest was also piqued after handing out
the snack last week: in my classroom, all students except for one eagerly took
a banana, yet when I came home and asked my own two children, neither one of
them did. Why was that? So I started on the healthy snack survey path…
When I looked online for healthy eating survey examples,
there were tons of them. However, with closer inspection, a lot of them were
about health in general, or weren’t looking to glean the same information that
my survey needed to. A very strong one was by the International Food
Information Council Foundation from Washington, DC although it was
all-encompassing and huge! It asked some questions about eating habits that I
wouldn’t have considered beforehand, and helped me get started.After looking up models for survey creation, I decided to try kwiksurveys.com although I quickly was wishing I had chosen a different model, as it didn’t allow for text/short answer questions. I decided to separate the survey into an online portion with straightforward scale questions, and a paper copy with more in-depth feedback/opinion questions. In hindsight, I think it worked out, as the paper copy with ideas could easily be given to someone to read and flip through, while still able to view the statistics from the online portion in charts or in Microsoft Excel format.
I separated the 12 online questions into three sections to
guide students: About You, About Your
Eating Habits, and About the Wednesday Morning Healthy Snack Program. The paper
copy had five questions.
I had three colleagues look through the survey (classroom
teacher, a teacher on the Health Promoting School group, and an administrator).
Generally, a few things popped up.1. First, I had missed one of the snacks, cheesestrings, that had been previously offered. I also missed adding the delivery option of a fruit bowl just sitting at the office or in a classroom.
2. Second, I had included ‘exercise’ in one question and the concern was that this had been focused only on healthy eating and adding exercise was moving in another direction. Other feedback was that some kids exercise but then eat terribly, and other kids may not exercise much but eat very healthily.
3. Third, when I had the question about whether students used the program or not, it didn’t leave a place for giving a reason why. That was the drawback of the kwiksurvey website, but I could add question that to the written section.
4. Fourth, one person suggested that I ask if kids had breakfast in the morning, or if they brought lunch, etc. I wasn’t initially going to delve into their eating habits from home, based on the information I got from the Elementary School next door. Their program has existed for seven years, and the philosophy is that food is provided to all students regardless of need, so that the stigma of receiving food isn’t there. However, since this program is just in its infancy, it would be interesting data to know for the Program Administrators to make decisions. She suggested: Do you eat breakfast every morning? What time do you usually eat breakfast? Do you bring a lunch to school?
Although this is a hypothetical scenario, I think that the
survey could actually be used to help shape the program direction and gauge
student opinions on a variety of different food topics.
The original survey (both parts) is posted below:
DCS Health Promoting School Group
One of the goals of the Health
Promoting School group is to help students improve their eating habits by
offering a healthy morning snack once a week. In order to assess how the
program is doing, we are asking you to fill out a short survey with three
parts.
About you:
What grade are you in?
1. 7
2. 8
3. 9
4. 10
5. 11
6. 12
What is your gender?
1. Female
2. Male
Do you currently follow a special diet for health reasons (diabetes,
allergies, other reason)?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Sometimes
About your eating
habits:
Do your classmates (or other
students) ever do the following? Choose all that apply.
1. Compliment
your efforts to eat healthy
2. Give
you a hard time for not eating healthy
3. Share
their healthy lunch with you
4. Share
their junk food with you
Do staff members ever do the
following? Choose all that apply.
1. Compliment
your efforts to eat healthy
2. Give
you a hard time for not eating healthy
3. Share
their healthy lunch with you
4. Share
their junk food with you
How much thought do you give to the
overall ‘healthfulness’ of the food you consume?
1. I
think about it with all my food choices.
2. I
think about it sometimes.
3. I
don't think about it at all.
Do you know that certain
foods/beverages are unhealthy but consume them anyway?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Sometimes
What do you think you need to do to
improve your eating habits? Choose all that apply.
1. Have
a more balanced diet from all the food groups.
2. Cut
back on junk food and sugar.
3. Cut
back on eating fast food.
4. Have
a better eating schedule.
5. Drink
more water.
6. Eat
more fruits and vegetables.
7. Exercise
more.
Wednesday Morning
Healthy Snack program:
Do you take and eat a healthy snack?
1. Every
week
2. Sometimes
3. Never
4. Depending
on what food it is
How do you prefer the snack handed
out?
1. Before
school at the doors and in the hallways
2. During
class in period 1
3. During
class in period 2
4. It
doesn't matter when it's handed out.
What are your
preferred snacks?
Do you think it would be beneficial
to receive health information along with the food snack?
1. Yes,
I would like more information.
2. Maybe,
depending on what it was about.
3. No,
I wouldn't want any information.
Thank you for participating in our survey! We will use your feedback to
make the weekly Healthy Snack program even better for students.
Please let your teacher know that you are finished. They will give you a paper with five short questions where you can give more detailed input into the program.
Thanks again!
DCS Health Promoting School Group
Please let your teacher know that you are finished. They will give you a paper with five short questions where you can give more detailed input into the program.
Thanks again!
DCS Health Promoting School Group
Delisle
Composite School: Health Promoting School Group
Weekly
Healthy Snack Program
We’d like a bit more
information - your suggestions and
opinions!
1.
What
other foods would you like to see provided?
2.
If you could make a change to the program, how
would you improve it?
3.
In your opinion what else can be done to improve
the eating habits of students at DCS?
4.
What benefits do you think the healthy snack
program provides for students?
5.
Right now, the Wednesday snack program does not
have a name. If you have a suggestion for a name, what would it be?
If there is any additional information you would like to add
about the healthy eating program write it in the space below. If not, thank you
for giving feedback on the program!
Online Survey with changes:
DCS Health Promoting School Group
One of the goals of the Health Promoting School group is to help students improve their eating habits by offering a healthy morning snack once a week. In order to assess how the program is doing, we are asking you to fill out a short survey with three parts.
About you:
About your eating habits:
Wednesday Morning Healthy Snack program:
| Dislike | Neutral | Like | Love | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apples | ||||
| Oranges | ||||
| Bananas | ||||
| Other fruit | ||||
| Assorted veggie bag | ||||
| Yogurt tubes | ||||
| Cheese strings | ||||
Thank you for participating in our survey! We will use your feedback to make the weekly Healthy Snack program even better for students.
Please let your teacher know that you are finished. They will give you a paper with five short questions where you can give more detailed input into the program.
Thanks again!
DCS Health Promoting School Group
Please let your teacher know that you are finished. They will give you a paper with five short questions where you can give more detailed input into the program.
Thanks again!
DCS Health Promoting School Group
2013 Food and Health Survey." 2013 Food and Health Survey. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. <http://www.foodinsight.org/foodandhealth2013.aspx>.
