Survey Research at Queens College

The Office of Institutional Effectiveness (OIE) designs and fields survey research to assess progress on college-wide goals, and we also assist with all aspects of program, departmental, and grant-funded survey projects, including instrument design, construct validity, sample creation, administration, analysis of responses and summaries of results (subject to availability and the existing survey schedule). 

Survey Support for Assessment and Student Success Projects

The OIE uses a platform called SurveyMonkey to field surveys for the purposes of program evaluation, needs assessment, and other large or complex student success projects.

  • OIE can review existing survey instruments or help you create new ones.
  • OIE can create the list of the population to be surveyed (census or random sampling).
  • OIE can field a survey on your behalf, which can be beneficial for several reasons, such as assuring students that their instructors cannot see their responses.
  • OIE can keep you informed of your survey’s progress (e.g. response rates).
  • OIE can provide a summary of the survey results following the close date of the survey. Special analyses, such as results by demographic or academic characteristics, require more time to complete (~2-3 weeks).
  • De-identified survey data can be provided upon request.
  • If incentives are offered, OIE can randomly select the appropriate number of winners for you. You will be responsible for purchasing the incentives, contacting the winners, distributing the incentives, and completing any administrative work regarding the incentives.

 

To request OIE survey assistance, please send an email to qc.oie@qc.cuny.edu with answers to the following:

  1. Which department/program is making the request?
  2. What research question(s) will the survey address?
  3. Who is the target population?
  4. How will the survey results be used and disseminated?
  5. ​What is the time frame of your project?
  6. What type of survey assistance do you need?

 

IMPORTANT NOTES

(1) From planning to reporting, the amount of time a survey project takes will vary depending on the scope of the project and its target population. Generally, OIE holds a series of planning meetings with the PI to gather information on the project’s purpose, audience, and timeline. After survey implementation, the results will be analyzed and presented within a report for informed decision making. Survey projects that support student success, program development, learning assessment, or strategic plan implementation take precedent.

(2) Please contact the OIE before attempting to create a survey so that the methodology can be discussed ahead of time. Department chairs and program directors may see our Program Assessment Survey Template or our Alumni Outcomes Survey Template for examples of appropriate question items and answer options.

(3)  We request that programs and departments please keep us informed of surveys fielded to the QC community. The OIE regularly fields its own surveys to students, faculty, and staff, and this information will help us avoid survey fatigue and low response rates, which can negatively affect important projects at the College.

(4) No one outside the OIE may access/use the OIE SurveyMonkey account because sensitive student data is incorporated into the software.

Survey Support for Other Types of Projects

The OIE uses a platform called SurveyMonkey to field surveys for large and cyclical student success projects. Because we incorporate sensitive student data into this platform, no one outside the OIE may access/use the OIE SurveyMonkey account. However, all QC members have access to Microsoft Forms, which is similar to SurveyMonkey in almost every regard.

Microsoft Forms is part of the Microsoft Office 365 family of products available to the QC community, and can be used to create custom surveys, polls, and quizzes. The platform offers automatic Excel integration, Microsoft Teams sharing, multi-language forms, FERPA and ADA compliance, conditional branching, anonymous submissions, automatic summary charting, reporting dashboards, and more.

If designing your own survey:

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For surveys not related to a program assessment project (e.g., a course poll, a workshop interest form, etc.), the OIE can help you learn how to use Microsoft Forms, help you create a questionnaire or template, and/or review your questionnaire to improve its validity and reliability. To request this type of assistance, please send an email to qc.oie@qc.cuny.edu with answers to the following:

  1. What are the main questions the survey or form will address?
  2. Who is your target population?
  3. When will you start using the form?
  4. What type of assistance do you need? (e.g., questionnaire creation or review, help with Microsoft Forms)

Note: The OIE receives a high volume of requests. Please give us at least a 3-week lead when requesting our assistance.

Here are some helpful resources on Microsoft Forms:

Study Recruitment of Queens College Members

To assist faculty with their research, connect students to faculty scholarship, and to ensure that the QC community is not over-surveyed (i.e., to avoid survey fatigue and dropout), the Study Recruitment Review Committee (SRRC) reviews all requests to recruit QC participants for IRB approved studies.

Researchers interested in recruiting from the QC community must submit their requests to the SRRC here:

Please note that requests for recruitment can only be made after a study has received IRB approval. If SRRC approval is granted, the study will be posted to the QC Opportunities to Participate in Research website, which is promoted regularly to QC students via newsletters and other announcements. Queens College does not allow researchers to survey our students directly because the college regularly fields it owns student surveys. In cases where the study population very specific, researchers will be directed to the chairs of the relevant departments to coordinate study recruitment in partnership with them.

 

The QC DEI Survey

The OIE is conducting a longitudinal survey study to gauge where we stand on our goals for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The OIE fields the QC DEI Survey annually to all active students, faculty, and staff. Learn more about the project below.

*Survey invitations are sent from qc.oie@qc.cuny.edu via Survey Monkey. If you have opted-out of Survey Monkey emails, you may opt back in here.

*In Fall 2023, the CUNY Chancellor directed the colleges to cancel all DEI and campus climate surveys. 

OIE Survey Definitions for DEI

Diversity = A community that values diversity respects the wide variety of shared and different characteristics among human beings and promotes cross-cultural competence through empathic understandings of individual and group differences. These differences can be along the dimensions of age, dis/ability, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs, political beliefs, etc.

Equity = An equitable community guarantees fair treatment, impartial practices, and equal access to opportunities for all by acknowledging that marginalized groups face inequality, and eliminating barriers that prevent the proportional distribution of desirable outcomes across groups, ensuring that characteristics such as race, gender, etc. do not determine opportunities.

Inclusion = An inclusive community brings people together in safe, welcoming, supportive environments where all students, faculty, and staff can thrive. This involves bringing traditionally excluded groups into processes, activities and decision-making in a way that shares power, and advancing an authentic sense of belonging through infrastructures that promote broad engagement and genuine connections among people.

Findings and Reports

The QC DEI Survey is designed to track over time, and overall, whether or not progress on DEI is taking place. Survey items are informed by (a) the 2021-2026 Strategic Plan and its goals for DEI, (b) an analysis of QC’s results from the 2019 COACHE survey by gender and racial background, and (c) the literature on measurement of DEI-related variables, including sense of belonging, microaggressions, and barriers to college completion. The instrument has been vetted by several diverse groups, including the former members of the QC Strategic Plan DEI Working Group, the CUNY Assessment Council, and the QC DEI Advisory Committee.

All Queens College members may access the documents below by logging into their QC M365 account.

 

Office of Institutional Effectiveness