Read about a UBC example of using Qualtrics, featuring Dr. Catherine Rawn, Professor of Teaching and the Associate Head, Undergraduate Affairs in the Department of Psychology. Catherine uses Qualtrics to facilitate the collection of student feedback and to design studies in her courses.
UBC Qualtrics Example for the Faculty of Arts
How did you use Qualtrics in your course and what made you decide to do this?
I use Qualtrics in many different ways in my courses.
The courses I teach the most are Research Methods and Statistics. On Canvas, I currently have an anonymous survey link that allows students to send me feedback at any time. Many years ago, I created a template that I’ve reused for collecting students’ requests for re-grading in a systematic way. Throughout the term, I use Qualtrics for demos (e.g., surveys, code small experiments, etc.) and for in-class exercises.
In the Psychology department broadly, we use Qualtrics as a tool for students to use in their experiment development studies. We had to implement this during the pandemic, since we could not conduct our in-person data collection exercise.
What has been your experience so far?
When we started sharing it for students to use, we found it to be a little un-intuitive.
Because Qualtrics is more sophisticated than other survey platforms like Google Forms, it’s also more sophisticated to learn.
When we were relying on every single project group to use it, it was tough to help students understand how to use it. Making experiments on Qualtrics is tricky, but it can be done. With Qualtrics’ branching logic, you really need to find out how to do it and understand the concept of branching. This was a hard concept for our students to grasp.
In the end, we were successful, but it was difficult when providing support to the students. Unless the student continues to go into the research field, learning how to use Qualtrics for our students is a high investment that takes a lot of resources.
For straightforward surveys, it’s pretty clear and easy to pick up.
What are some challenges/successes in using Qualtrics in your practice?
Some of the successes in using Qualtrics are the following:
- The tool is FIPPA compliant.
- The data is kept all in one place.
- The ability to copy surveys is useful.
- The ability to give collaborative access works well – I have been able to share feedback/request forms with colleagues while also keeping my students’ data safe by adjusting the permissions.
- The surveys are secure and easily shareable with anyone within UBC.
- There are multiple options for data export, which is important for research and teaching purposes.
One of the biggest challenges with using Qualtrics is that it is more complicated to show live results.
What is your advice for new users of Qualtrics?
Think about how you like to learn about software and be ready to invest some time in it. Do you like to learn new technologies in conversation? Do you like to learn from watching videos and exploring on your own? Both options are available and a combination of both is beneficial in learning how to use this tool.
If you are someone who is familiar with creating surveys on other platforms like Google Forms, using Qualtrics wouldn’t be too big of a leap compared to someone who isn’t familiar with creating surveys at all.
Once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty straightforward.
Faculty and staff looking for Qualtrics support, please contact us at the LT Hub.