Flowchart
Where to put demographic questions in a course evaluation
A flowchart for survey designers and quality teams deciding whether and where to ask students about gender, ethnicity or background in a course evaluation. It draws on the stereotype threat research, including the replication debate, and on survey practice of putting demographic items last. It does not claim that early placement always changes answers: the evidence is mixed. Koji lets you set the order of questions and keep the pre-interview form short or off.
What's in this flowchart
Start: You want to compare groups of students
- Can you get the group from student records?
- No: go to 2.
- Yes: Link records, do not ask. Only with a lawful basis and with small groups suppressed.
- Do you need it to route later questions?
- No: go to 3.
- Yes: Ask only that item first. One neutral question. Move the rest to the end. Then go to 3.
- Ask the course questions. Teaching, workload, assessment and open comments.
- Ask demographics last. Explain why you ask. Offer prefer not to say.
- Is any group too small to report safely?
- No: go to 6.
- Yes: Merge or suppress that group.
- Finish: Report groups side by side. With counts, so readers can judge the numbers.
Use this image
Free to use in your docs, decks and posts under CC BY 4.0, as long as you credit Koji with a link to this page. To embed it, paste this into your page:
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<a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/where-to-put-demographic-questions-flowchart"><img src="https://www.koji.so/visuals/where-to-put-demographic-questions-flowchart/where-to-put-demographic-questions-flowchart.png" alt="Flowchart for placing demographic questions: use records where you can, ask only what routing needs at the start, and put the rest at the end." width="1200" height="1586" /></a>
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/where-to-put-demographic-questions-flowchart">Where to put demographic questions in a course evaluation</a>, Koji</p>
