Step 4: Tailor your closed-response questions.

A) For questions 1 and 2, you consider three different formats:

• In a ranking format, respondents would rank the four subject areas they take from 1 to 4 (least to most favorite.) This would yield worthwhile comparative information, but respondents could not communicate that they like two or more subjects equally.

  Example:

  Rank the subjects based on how much you like them, from 1 to 4. Assign a 1 to your least favorite and a 4 to your most favorite.
  ____ history
  ____ mathematics
  ____ science
  ____ writing

• In a compare-to-an-aggregation format, respondents would rank their preference for science compared to their other subjects; then they would answer an equivalent question about writing. This format compels comparison, but the comparison is too general to yield much detail about relative preferences that might come in handy later in your evaluation.

  Example:

  For each subject in the table below, place a check in the cell that indicates your answer.

  	Much more	A little more	A little less	A lot less
  How much do you like science compared to your other subjects?
  How much do you like writing compared to your other subjects?

• In an identifying-a-level format, participants would rate their level of preference of each of the four subject areas separately. Later, in data analysis, you would combine the answers to rank each student's level of preference for science and writing in comparison to each other and to the other subjects.

  You choose the identifying-a-level format because it allows you to get their opinions about all subjects independently while still getting comparative data. For example, if 40% indicated that they are very interested in science and 25% very interested in writing, that would be equivalent to saying that, among the group as a whole, there is a stronger preference for science than for writing.

  Example:

  For each subject in the table below, place a check in the cell that indicates how much you like it.

  	Like it a lot	Like it a little	Don't like it very much	Don't like it at all
  History
  Mathematics
  Science
  Writing

B) For questions 3 and 4, you consider the same formats as you did for questions 1 and 2. However, this time you choose a ranking format because you want the questionnaire data to reveal which activities deserve priority from the students' perspectives. Knowing each student's preferred activities will help the instructors individualize the curriculum.

Example:

Rank the following types of writing activities sfrom 1 to 5 based on how much you like them. Assign a 1 to your least favorite and a 5 to your most favorite.
____ writing research reports
____ writing stories
____ writing autobiographies
____ writing scripts
____ writing poems

C) You consider whether to allow the students to indicate that they do not like any subjects or activities in the above questions. You decide against this because, for the sake of helping the project get off the ground, you want to make sure that the students commit to a preference that the instructor can build on, even if the preference is lukewarm.