To improve in anything, you must first be able to identify where you’re falling short.
Think about it, you’ve dedicated months into organising and building your online courses, so for you to not look into gathering feedback on how your course is received by your students, you’re doing yourself and future students a disservice.
Since you’ve put so much time and effort into creating your course, it makes sense to put the effort into collecting effective feedback.
Feedback is essential if you want your courses to advance and grow. This mantra is especially true for eLearning.
By collecting feedback, you’re not only finding out what you can do better for future students but how to retain those you’ve already worked with so that they sign up for any upcoming courses you may be developing. Customer retention is key to an eLearning courses’ success, and surveys can help guide you toward keeping your current students happy.
A simple way to capture learner feedback is with post-course survey questions. In this post, we’ll give you some tips on how to plan out your Learning Management System (LMS) surveys for maximum impact.
Types of post-course survey questions
The following areas of survey questions can help you gather some useful information that can be applied towards improving the way your content is received in the future:
- Course Description
- Course Content
- Media Used
- Exams
- Design and Navigation
- Overall View
- Where can I Improve?
Course Description
This area of questions helps identify whether the information set out in the course title, description, objectives accurately describes the course and the information contained within it.
You need to measure the learner’s expectation of the course versus the reality of the resulting learner experience. The more aligned the learner’s expectations and reality are, the better.
An example of a question you could ask in regards to the course description is, “Was the course different to what you initially expected and if so, why?”
Course structure
Course structure is key to a positive online training or learning experience. Having a well laid out, logical structure is vital. You can even argue that structure is even more important in eLearning courses, because you cannot dictate the pace, or emphasis, like you can in an real-time learning environment.
Getting feedback on structure helps you to see how the course is being experienced from the user’s position, understanding how they’re engaging with the learning content first-hand.
Course content
It’s important with online learning that your course and training content meets the objectives of your students. The ultimate goal of a training program or an education institution is the design and development of relevant, informative content that educates your students.
Surveys are a fantastic tool to determine whether your learning platform is providing your students with the information they need, and that it’s presented in an understandable way.
Media used
Including a question on the types of media used in your course content can give you some insights into how engaging your training is. The purpose of using media in your content is to help train your employees or students in further understanding the course course content, so be sure to ask if the use of media is helping or hindering their learning experience.
By using a mix of text, images and video, you’ll not only increase the likelihood of engagement, you’ll make knowledge transfer more effective.
Exams
Exams are an essential part of online training. They are used to assess a student’s understanding of course content, and reinforce key takeaways.
Inviting feedback from students on exams can help you determine if there’s room for improvement in exam content.
Design and navigation
Using LMS software that provides superior UX and UI should be a priority, as its main purpose is to meet the needs of your learner effortlessly. Simplicity is key, and course instructional design should assist your students rather than deter them.
If your students can navigate through your courses with ease, you’re likely to have a higher rate of engagement.
Overall view
Now that your students have answered survey questions on individual elements of your courses, your next goal is to determine their overall opinion.
A simple rating scale is the most straightforward way to identify this. Using the average score, you’ll have a clear idea of your students’ overall consensus. If the average score is low, the survey has let you know that improvements need to be made. If the average score is high, your students are mostly satisfied with the courses overall.
Where can I improve?
Even if the overall average score is high, there’s always room for course improvement. Asking your students where you could improve is the most important question you can ask on your survey.
Ask students where the course could be improved, and add a comment box in which they can leave suggestions. Using this feedback, you can tackle problems with your course content, structure, media, design, and more.
Now that you’re equipped with the knowledge needed to build an effective survey, you need to make sure your LMS platform is up to scratch too. Book a free trial and demo with Archy Learning today, and see our LMS in action.
