For the past few weeks ZIS upper school students have been receiving a wide range of emails. Those are the surveys which ask for personal opinions in terms of the introduction of new innovations into the campus.
That is the science project assigned to the grade 10 students, the topics were prewritten and that is why some surveys have completely the same questions. Are those surveys really useful or is it just a waste of time?
Paper Consumption.
One of the popular topics chosen by the students is paper consumption in ZIS. There were at least three surveys sent with the same exact questions, “How much paper do you use per week?” was in each survey. Isn’t this question useless, because it does not give any information in terms of reducing the paper waste. This question does not help the project groups any information (except statistics) that they can use in their final work.
A better question that could be used is ”Do you consider use of paper useful if students can do their work on laptops?”
Bees in ZIS.
Bees in ZIS?! At least four surveys have been sent out through the school. However, the questions were so similar, it even looked like one survey was sent multiple times. The simplicity of questions surprised me a lot, I did not find a single reason to answer any of the questions. Surveys did not include any background information to prove that the chosen topic would positively affect ZIS Upper School campus. “Why bees? For what reasons? What is the impact?” were the questions I came up with. The goal of the project would have been really useful in at least one of the surveys.
Soda Machines.
In the previous surveys I kind of understood how the topic can carry a positive impact to ZIS, whereas the use of Soda Machines does not make any sense for me. Survey does not have anything related to improving the school environment, it does not have any background information and most importantly; it does not state the improvements that can be made by placing Soda Machines.
Dietary choices.
However, one survey that I found very interesting was “How sustainable are the dietary choices of the students at ZIS?”. The topic that I considered useless turned out to be the one I spent time thinking about. Questions clearly stated the goal of the project, and the survey did not require any additional writing made. Questions showed the environmental impact that project makers can get out of the survey results.
In conclusion, I want to point out that surveys are useful for research projects, but making them interesting and useful for filling is the goal of the author.