Tackling the Survey: A Learning-by-Induction Design

Abstract

Free online survey tools provide a practical learning-by-induction platform for business communication instructors interested in trying out an advanced multidisciplinary survey activity coupled with an innovative teaching design. More than just building skills in marketing, survey projects marshal a wider set of thinking and doing activities that build student competency in the interrelated disciplines of communication, consumer analysis, and research. The design and sequence of a survey-learning module are outlined as well as expected learning outcomes, assessment considerations, and suggestions for exploring the interdisciplinary opportunities that surveys afford.

Simulating surveys for graduate researcher development

“…Furthermore, having students create a survey on a topic that is of interest to them helps connect them to the research topic and creates a buy-in, which has been linked to doctoral student retention (Bair and Haworth, 2004 ; Litalien et al, 2015 ; Hanson et al, 2022 ). This process allows students to understand the consequences of creating hastily designed survey and provides students the full experience of working with realistic and messy data (Witte, 2017 ).…”

“…The authors assert that using simulated data provides students an opportunity to obtain hands on experience with complex data. Witte ( 2017 ) found that allowing students to learn statistical analysis through hands-on manipulation of “messy” data is more effective than approaches relying on theory, computations, and data that is cleaned and prepped to facilitate easy statistical analysis. Results indicating significantly better learning outcomes using data simulations compared to traditional teaching methods have also been demonstrated in finance investment university classes (Chulkov and Wang, 2020 ).…”