Survey Software for Undergraduate Research Projects

This project addresses a problem Prof. Lenz has identified in his Policital Science classes: the lack of good survey software for students. In the past, he has had students use open source and free software, but they suffer from limitations that detract from students’ experience. This Alumni Class Funds award will purchase a department-wide license of Qualtrics, a software package that Prof. Lenz has found to be powerful enough but also easy to learn and that he feels will be ideal for his classes. It has a simple graphical interface, but has many more features, including the ability to randomize conditions for experiments. It has also been especially designed for working with students. He plans to use Qualtrics with 17.871, which has 12-15 students, and 17.20, which had 60 students last year. He will evaluate the software based on student feedback to determine its value in future classes.