Midterm data-analysis and Forms

October 15th, 2009 Posted in faculty, student, tech

In August, one of the workshops that I offered was on Google Docs. A newer feature of theirs, Forms, was widely received as having great potential. I wrote before about using Forms as a digital worksheet when I returned from Kairos and needed something for the students to do while I caught up on life and work. Here is another concrete way in which Google Docs can be used - this time as a way to begin analyzing data on your exams.

One of the more time-consuming parts about using data is collecting the data itself from student work and then entering it into a spreadsheet. That is the real reason that more of us do not do it on a regular basis. Enter: Forms.

I created a simple Form with eleven questions, asking students to enter the data from their own Midterm, and submit it.

Google Form

Students just see these eleven short questions, and a "submit" button. But, behind the scenes, I see their data filling in a spreadsheet.

Google Doc spreadsheet

Right there, I have just saved myself hours of work - literally. Now all I need to do is scroll to the bottom of each column and have the spreadsheet total the data, and from there I can crank out some basic statistical analysis for myself about how students did on each sub-section of the Midterm. (Any Math- or Science-person can help you with this Excel-like data manipulation.)

This new-ish tool from Google is especially timely given today's in-service on curriculum renewal, and the role of data in curriculum redesign. Let me know if you are interested in setting this up, or have any questions.

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  1. 2 Responses to “Midterm data-analysis and Forms”

  2. By Adrian O'Keefe on Oct 15, 2009

    I’ve started using Google Forms in my astronomy class as a way to collect student responses to questions on a software program that we use in class. It’s been very helpful though it took some work on the front end I’ve been very pleased with the results. So far I haven’t graded my assignments for correctness (only completion) so I haven’t wrestled with doing the computational work required to grade them for accuracy.

    Any idea if there’s a way to provide feedback while they fill out the form? I would love to be able to give them real-time feedback on whether their answers are correct or not.

    -Adrian

  3. By Albert Boyle on Oct 28, 2009

    Forms are available as a standard feature of Outlook. The following tutorial is helpful: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA012106101033.aspx. The tutorial was written for Outlook 2003, but the same basic steps appear to apply in Outlook 2007.

    For Outlook forms you should be able to add Visual Basic scripts to provide feedback. I’m not sure if that is possible with Google forms.

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