How do I monitor student responses if I am using Qualtrics during class?

Unlike traditional classroom response tools like Poll Everywhere, Qualtrics only records responses when a user has completed a survey. This poses a problem if you would like students to work on questions in class and immediately have access to their responses to a given question. 

One workaround for this is to divide your questions into multiple surveys and set up redirects from survey to survey. An example of this setup is described below. 

In her next English 101: Shakespeare's Birds class session, Dr. Doe plans to stop several times during her lecture and instruct the students to work on some questions in Qualtrics. She plans to take four breaks over the course of the 50 minute lecture. During each break, students will work on 1-3 questions. 

Dr. Doe creates four Qualtrics surveys:

  • Part 1 - Blue Jays (2 questions)
  • Part 2 - Cardinals (1 question)
  • Part 3 - Swans (3 questions)
  • Part 4 - Robins (2 questions)

She organizes these surveys in a folder in her My Projects to make them easier for her to find. 

She opens the "Part 1 - Blue Jays" survey, finds the anonymous distribution link, and copies the link into a text file. She repeats the process for the other three surveys. 

She opens the "Part 1" survey again and opens the Survey Options. She deselects Save and Continue because she wants students to answer the questions in one sitting. Then she selects Redirect to a URL and pastes in the anonymous link that points to the "Part 2 - Cardinals" survey. 

She repeats this for Part 2 (pasting in the link to "Part 3 - Swans") and Part 3 (pasting in the link to "Part 4 - Robins"). 

Before class, she sends the link to the "Part 1 - Blue Jays" survey to her students. During class, she instructs the students to open the link and answer the two questions in Part 1. Students answer the questions and click the Next button. 

After giving the students a few minutes to answer the two questions in Part 1, Dr. Doe displays the Public Report in class. It shows student responses to the questions in Part 1. Meanwhile, students have been automatically redirected to the "Part 2 - Cardinals" survey so they will be ready to work on those questions when Dr. Doe takes another question break. 

Before Class

Plan your question breaks.

Before you start creating your surveys, think about how you plan to the tool in class. Some things to consider:

  • How many times during the lecture you plan to stop and ask questions?
  • Will students work on questions independently or in groups?
  • How many questions students should work on before you bring them back together to review answers?

A consult with Educational Technology Services can be helpful during the planning process.

Create your surveys.

Create one survey for each question break you plan to take and populate it with questions. You may wish to title them "Part 1, Part 2..." and/or organize them in a folder in My Projects.

Get the link to each survey and copy it into a text document.

  • Go to your first survey.
  • Open Survey Options in the Survey module.
  • Deselect Save and Continue.
  • Select Redirect to a URL.
  • Paste the URL link for the second survey.
  • Repeat for each part.

Note: We recommend that you have no more than four or five "parts," as it quickly becomes confusing to set up and maintain the links. 

Students do not need the links to subsequent parts as they will be automatically sent to the next survey when they complete Part 1.

In Class

Instruct students to launch the survey.

Students should answer the questions they see. Instruct them to click the "Next" button when they are done. When a student clicks "Next," their responses are recorded AND they are automatically sent to Part 2.

Display the results.

Display the Public Report for Part 1 in class. Refresh the report (reload the browser page) to see the latest student responses.