Framing the questions
I was watching a "news" show this morning where reporters were commenting on results of a survey. Once again, what I really wanted was to see the actual survey questions. Here is why.
I could have a survey item that asks:
Rank order the following strategies and activities from best (1) to worst (5):
Corporal punishment
Round robin reading
Grammar instruction in isolation
Basal textbooks
Explicit phonics instruction
Can you imagine the headlines I could create from the results of this inartful question? But if you never see the question, I could write that 75% of teachers surveyed favored round robin reading (or basalt or phonics, etc.).
Some surveys from earlier this year declared most teachers approved of CCSS. When I dug into the survey itself, this statement was a tad misleading.
And so it goes.
I could have a survey item that asks:
Rank order the following strategies and activities from best (1) to worst (5):
Corporal punishment
Round robin reading
Grammar instruction in isolation
Basal textbooks
Explicit phonics instruction
Can you imagine the headlines I could create from the results of this inartful question? But if you never see the question, I could write that 75% of teachers surveyed favored round robin reading (or basalt or phonics, etc.).
Some surveys from earlier this year declared most teachers approved of CCSS. When I dug into the survey itself, this statement was a tad misleading.
And so it goes.