Survey Analysis

The survey is 10 questions long that range from short answer, multiple choice, and star

rating questions. From Thursday, 11/14/19 at 11:00 am to Friday, 11/15/19 at 10:00 am, my

survey had 10 participants. The survey is concerned with the experiences of students in history

classes throughout their years of schooling. I will use this survey to better understand what

students found interesting and the teaching methods they found the most helpful. This data can

be used to make lessons in the future that engage students who do not like history. This will

hopefully allow them to receive the same benefit from instruction as the history lovers.

It interesting to see who likes history and who doesn’t. It wasn’t surprising to find that

the history majors like history and non-history majors weren’t as big of fans. A lot of the

feedback that was negative was because their history teachers would rely on lectures. The one

response that was awesome to see was one student’s experience with their history teacher doing

a lesson on trench warfare. Their teacher lined up their desks to represent trenches and balled up

pieces of paper as hand grenades. This made the lesson on trench warfare and WWI come to life.

Students seemed to recognize that history is important in understanding today’s world overall,

but maybe the connection is lost because of loss of interest.

The question pertaining to whether or not students will seek history courses will be

omitted on the next survey. The question is probably geared more towards history majors

because they are already more likely to take history courses on their own. Non-history majors are

less likely to take them not only because they don’t like the subject, but also because their majors

have them taking other courses. It is not important to know if they would like to take them on

their own or not. The goal of this survey is to better gauge what a teacher can do to make history

more interesting and as a result, show students why history is important in the world today.
The star rating system could have been improved upon. I only gave labels for one and five stars.

Stars 2 through 4 did not have labels. If students gave a rating from 2 to 4 their answers were

placed in the same “no label group”. I could see how many students answered the question, but I

couldn’t see the distinction see exactly who answered with a 3-star rating and who answered

with a 4-star rating.

Overall, the data was not surprising. There weren’t really any outliers. The sample size

also isn’t big enough to make any assumptions. My duty as a teacher is being enthusiastic about

the content and presenting the material in new and interesting ways to engage all students, not

just the history buffs.

Response to Survey

1. What gender do you identify with?

o 6 female, 4 male

2. What is your major?

o Elementary Education:

o Education

o Biology Secondary Education

o History and Social Studies/Secondary Education: 4

o Secondary Education: 2

o Special Education Middle School Math

3. Do you find the general subject of history interesting? (scale of 0-100)

o 80,50,36,16, 81,50,68,98,92,80

4. Briefly describe something that a teacher did to make history class better.

o Explained why an event was important

 o Act it out

o Using more connections

o Was passionate

o Got excited about the content

o More enthusiasm

o Interesting lectures

o Make it funny

o We emulated trench warfare by creating trenches using desks and throwing

crumbled up paper at each other.

o Showed a lot of visuals

5. Briefly describe something a teacher did that may have turned you off of history.

o Simply state facts without discussing meaning

o Ran through notes

o Just reading textbooks

o Lectured AT me

o Boring lecture

o Talk about things that don’t matter

o Boring and long readings

o Make us memorize every. Single. Date

o Lack of diversity in content

o Too much reading

6. What kind of experiences have affected your outlook on history courses in general the

most?
 o Positive Experiences: 5

o Negative Experiences: 0

o Nothing stands out in my mind: 5

7. How likely are you to take another history course outside of the core requirements?

o Very Likely: 5

o Likely: 0

o Neither likely nor unlikely: 2

o Unlikely: 1

o Very unlikely: 2

8. How important is history in understanding the world today? (star rating – 1 star = History

is in the past for a reason. Modern problems call for modern solutions. It is not important.

5 stars = History repeats itself, so it is very important.)

o 1 star: 0

o 2 stars: 0

o 3 stars: 1

o 4 stars: 3

o 5 stars: 6

9. What is your favorite era of history?

o Early 1900’s

o 1900’s

o Renaissance

o Civil war

o 20th century
 o Warring states era

o Greek mythology

o Medieval Europe

o Post industrialization

o World War II

10. What subject would you have liked to learn more about in high school?

o Native American history

o None

o Math

o n/a

o World War II

o Asian History

o Greek mythology

o African history

o Asian history

o 1990’s to present