[Events] getting people to fill out exit surveys

[Michelle Rowley]

Shauna,

This is such a difficult problem. When I ran the Portland Python Workshops
for Women (and their friends!) back in 2012, we built in time for the
attendees to fill out the survey at the end of the workshop (and we still
got less than 50% participation, if I recall correctly). Recently we ran a
different workshop at Code Scouts and sent an email asking for feedback
afterward. I think we got *maybe* 20% participation (and it was a very
short survey).

I think if there was time built in *and* a prize, and you could only enter
the drawing with some sort of code you found out at the end of the
survey... that would probably get you above 50% and maybe higher. For a
free event, it occurs to me that you might be able to guilt people into it
by reminding them that it was free and the only payment you ask is
feedback. I'm not a huge fan of guilt trips in general, but feedback is so
crucial, it might be worth it in that case! :)

Michelle Rowley
Executive Director, Code Scouts <http://www.codescouts.org/>
Founder + Chief Culture Engineer, Cultivate & Co. <http://cultivateand.co/>


On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 12:04 PM, Shauna Gordon-McKeon
<shaunagm at gmail.com>wrote:

> We've historically had a really hard time getting people to fill out exit
> surveys.  This is a problem, as it's one of only a few ways we have of
> finding out how events go and how to improve them.
>
> What do folks recommend?  Should we try to get folks to fill out surveys
> at the event, rather than afterwards?  (Maybe we could frame it as an open
> source contribution?)  Should we build in time for exit surveys during the
> event?  Offer prizes/rewards/stickers/thank yous for filling it out?  Is
> there language we could use to express how very much we would like people
> to complete it?
>
>
>
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> Events at lists.openhatch.org
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>
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