Engaging Qualtrics: Creating Interactive Training Modules

Sam Dowell

Yuanjie Dai

Mike Floyd

Kaylea Algire

Principles of Instructional Design

February 17, 2013

Introduction

                The Center for Instructional Technology perceives an online component to the face to face Qualtrics training program for several reasons.  First, there is no efficient way to conduct an assessment on learned skills with the current training program.  Second, there is a higher demand then it is possible to conduct the needed sessions face to face. Third, face to face does not allow the facilitator to adapt the training to reach learners where they are in terms of schedule, learning preferences, or location.  Developing an online component will potentially address all of these needs and also allow CIT staff to reallocate resources to other projects.

Needs Analysis

CIT at JMU developed and conducted a three-hour training program in a face to face environment for the past five years.  A year ago, David Stoops facilitated these trainings as part of his position with CIT.  The beginning of the training consists of a best practices presentation by Dr. Peter De Michele from the Office of Institutional Research.  Dave then finishes the training with a step by step facilitated presentation of the program.  However, as demand grows, CIT determined that it would be more efficient and effective if they added an online component to their face to face offerings.

Learner Analysis

Typically a participant in the face to face sessions is a faculty or staff member in the JMU community.  Mean age of participants is thirty five and of middle income. However, there is a blend of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.  Each gender is equally represented, and all have at least a bachelor’s degree. 

This training is not currently open to graduate students, but an online training would allow them to become familiar with the software if their departments negotiated accounts for them.  For example, the Adult Education/Human Resource Development program has several department accounts that it allows students to use to conduct thesis research. 

Target Audience
Age:	25-60
Education:	Mostly bachelor’s degree holders with some master’s and doctorate degree holders
Computer Skills	Varies
Gender	Mix of men and women
Attitudes	Required training with paid time at the training
Experience	Mixture of experienced Qualtrics uses and new users
Ethnic Background	Mostly Caucasian with a few Asian and African American participants
Income	Median Income to Upper Income Participants

Context Analysis

                This is a required training before participants receive access to JMU’s Qualtrics license.   All learners have a varying amount of experience with the program.  For example, if a professor came from another university that already used Qualtrics, then they come in at an expert level, however, currently there is no way for them to be granted access without going through the training.  Each session has a different mix of learner experience which presents challenges within the facilitation.

                The target audience of each training session is faculty, staff, or graduate students that are conducting customer service satisfaction surveys or research, offering conference registration or conducting departmental voting.  The sessions are generally held in Rose Library in the computer lab in CIT’s office.  There are thirty two computers on computer tables with chairs.  Each participant has access to a computer in order to be able to work with the program during the session.  There are white boards around the perimeter of the room and the desks are oriented in rows towards the front of the room.  There is an LCD projector mounted on the ceiling with a screen at the front of the room.  Dave also uses flip charts and markers to facilitate learning.   The facilitator workstation is located at the front of the room to the side.  There is an option for private face to face training sessions which Dave also conducts in the participants’ office or lab.  This can mean a variety of technologies available and levels of technology experiences present. 

Personas

“Susan” is a new professor at James Madison.  She teaches several sections on the effect of the media on politics.  She is interested in conducting a survey to test the effect of mass media and advertising on the most recent presidential election.  She wants to create a survey that she can distribute easily to JMU students, staff, and faculty and non-JMU members in the community.  While doing her initial research she finds out from her department head and CIT that she needs to go through training for Qualtrics before she can design her survey.  Unfortunately, she is unable to attend the next training because it is during one of her scheduled classes.  The next training is not being offered for a month, and the grant application that could fund her research is due in two weeks.  She has to do the training as soon as possible to start collecting data.  Right now she will have to cancel her class to attend the training.

“Mr. Jones” has been working at JMU for ten years in the Center for Multicultural and International Student Services.  He recently was approached by the director of CMISS to design and offer a training program for diversity awareness among faculty and staff.  In order to get a good idea about areas of improvement, existing programs and the effectiveness of these programs he would like to send a survey to his colleagues that will be easily accessible and efficient.  From his director he finds out that he must participate in the Qualtrics training session at CIT. However, Mr. Jones travels for his position and he is unable to adjust his schedule to attend scheduled sessions.  When he contacts CIT to schedule a one-on-one meeting, he is informed that the facilitator cannot meet him for another two months.  Mr. Jones must have an initial lesson plan prepared and ready for his director by the end of the month.  Right now he will not be able to meet his deadline.

Instructional Goal                      

Users will be able to take more control of their learning experience after the successful completion of the online Qualtrics modules.  After learner self-sufficiency, efficient reallocation of CIT resources is the next major goal for this instructional design project.

Content Analysis

This conceptual framework shows the five main instructional units and their connection to the successful completion of survey creation using Qualtrics.  With these five units, students will be able to complete the main instructional goal.

Behaviors/Content

·         Best practices for closed and open ended questions

·         Access to Qualtrics

·         Create a new survey

·         Understanding Look and Feel options

·         Understanding Survey Options

·         Create five basic question formats

·         Skip logic

·         Editing options

·         Launch survey

·         Collecting results

·         Analyzing results

 Content Checking/SME Information

                Elaine Roberts and David Stoops will act as the subject matter experts for this project.  Elaine Roberts is a recent AHRD graduate and currently works at CIT as a Learning Technologies Support Coordinator.  In her current position Elaine works to coordinate student employees and support faculty development.  She is acting as an advisor for the instructional design process for this project.  David Stoops is an acting Educational Technology Consultant.  He currently facilitates all of the Qualtrics face to face sessions, and house call sessions.  He is our primary SME on this project. 

	Need to Know	Nice to Know
User Interface	Open Qualtrics Login Tasks Folders Create New Survey Where to Save Name	Use existing survey
Macro Knowledge	Look and Feel Templates  Survey Options	Collaboration My Survey Options
Question Creation	Create Questions 1.       Multiple Choice 2.       Static Content 3.       Matrix Table (Likert) 4.       Text Entry 5.        Special Questions Layout Skip Logic Editing Preview	Advanced Logic Options
Launch	Publish Share	Collaborate
Results	Data Analysis View Reports Responses Download Data Stats Section	Cross Tabulation

Rationale

Skills listed in the nice to know column represent advanced Qualtrics skill sets.  It would be nice if participants were familiar with these skills; however, it is not necessary for them to master them in this training program for completion.  These skills maybe mentioned if applicable to the content area, but participants will be referred to the Qualtrics University website to learn more if they are interested.  Furthermore, the SMEs mentioned that the most critical piece right now for this project is the Question completion piece.  Once the prototype of this unit is complete, others can be explored in more depth.

Performance Agreement

Objectives	Evaluation Tasks
User Interface Skills
Recognize and describe key features of the Qualtrics interface, in order to design an effective survey.	Participants will show successful completion of this task by identifying where and how to change the look and feel of their Qualtrics survey.  They will have the opportunity to practice the skill before a short assessment with software simulation activities within each module.
Macro Knowledge and Launching Skills
Illustrate knowledge of “survey options” by preparing and launching their survey, and submitting the password protected link to the instructor.	The final product of a successfully designed survey will be the main evaluation piece of these two skill sets. Students must be able to understand how the software works (macro knowledge) and also to apply that knowledge by launching the final product.  Each section will also have practice and assessment pieces.
Question Creation
Demonstrate understanding of Qualtrics by composing a survey which includes 5 distinct question types, as outlined in the session.                 1) Multiple Choice                 2) Static Content                 3) Matrix table (likert)                 4) Text entry                 5) Special question (users choice)	This module will be broken down into chapters.  Each chapter will cover each different question type and its creation.  Students will practice each question creation piece before a final assessment piece.  Participants will also complete skip logic and editing as part of this unit.  Each of these skills will be assessed with a short quiz at the end of each module.
Results Skills
Locate and identify tools needed to collect and view results.	Participants will complete a simulation of locating and viewing results for successful completion of this unit.
Demonstrate understanding of results tools in Qualtrics by interpreting compiled results.	Participants will complete a simulation of locating and viewing results for successful completion of this unit.

Instructional Module

After discussing the format and target audience with the SMEs, the decision was reached that Articulate will allow the modules to be distributed across viewing platforms, protect the integrity of the design, and allow for simple and easily replicated software simulation for CIT.  Each module can be followed through in completion for the novice, or only the final assessments can be taken for the expert.  Time for completion depends on the participant.  Ideally, up-front content knowledge will last between ten and fifteen minutes, following adult learning theory.  Each of these will be followed by software simulations that can be completed within ten to fifteen minutes depending on the participant.  The following markups are sample designs for the modules. 

Figure 1: Basic Layout of Modules and Sitemap

Figure 2: Sample Layout for Question Creation Module

Figure 3: Sample Layout for User Interface Module