Survey

Intro

The Survey activity in LAMS allows you to collect structured feedback, opinions, and insights from your students through a range of question types. It is designed not just for gathering responses, but for supporting reflection, comparison, and data-informed teaching decisions.

A well-designed survey goes beyond simple feedback collection. It becomes a powerful learning and teaching instrument.

• It encourages student reflection, prompting learners to think critically about their understanding, experiences, or opinions
• It provides you with evidence-based insights to adapt and improve your teaching
• It supports metacognition, as students compare their responses with peers
• It enables data-driven decision-making in curriculum design and delivery
• It fosters a sense of student voice and inclusion, showing learners that their perspectives matter

In short, surveys help transform feedback into actionable learning intelligence.

Why do I want to use Survey?

You would typically use a Survey when you want to:

• Collect honest feedback on teaching, content, or learning experiences
• Understand student perspectives on a topic before, during, or after a lesson
• Evaluate the effectiveness of a teaching strategy or activity
• Support reflective learning, allowing students to articulate their thinking
• Encourage participation from all students, including those less likely to speak in discussions
• Enable peer comparison, helping students see how their views align with others

What can I use a Survey for?

Surveys are highly flexible and can be applied across many teaching scenarios:

• Module or lesson feedback, helping you refine your teaching approach
• Pre-lesson diagnostics, to gauge prior knowledge or misconceptions
• Post-activity reflection, to consolidate learning and capture insights
• Research data collection, particularly in educational or social science contexts
• Opinion polling, to stimulate discussion or introduce a topic
• Self-assessment, where students evaluate their confidence or understanding

They are particularly effective in pedagogies such as Pedagogies that use Survey: Reciprocal Learning, Think-Pair-Share, Predict Observe Explain, etc.

How does it work?

You create a set of survey questions designed to gather specific insights from your students.

• You can include multiple question types, such as:

  • Multiple choice
  • Rating scales
  • Likert scales
  • Open-ended responses
  • Ranking questions
• You can control participation by making questions compulsory or optional
• Students answers can be completely anonymous for honest feedback

Once students respond:

• They can review their answers
• You can allow them to revise and resubmit responses
• If enabled:

  • Students can view aggregated results from their peers
  • Results are displayed in visual formats such as charts, but only after they submit their own responses
• As a teacher:

  • You can monitor responses in real time
  • You can export all data to Excel, making it easy to analyse further using tools like SPSS or R

By integrating Surveys into your learning design, you move towards a more responsive, reflective, and student-centred teaching approach, fully aligned with the principles of structured learning design in LAMS