Creating course questionnaires

Two ways to get a questionnaire

A questionnaire is a set of questions your participants answer inside the app. You can either write your own, or import a standard wellbeing instrument from the built-in library. Either way it is defined once for your organisation, and your course templates refer to it, so one questionnaire can serve any number of courses.

You write, import and manage questionnaires on the Questionnaires screen, which organisation admins open from the Teacher tab.

• Import a standard instrument: a small library of established wellbeing measures, each with its scoring already built in. Use these when you want a recognised measure and a score you can compare across courses.
• Write your own: your questions, your wording. Your own questionnaires collect answers but do not calculate a score yet. If you need scoring, import a library instrument.

Writing your own questionnaire

On the Teacher tab, choose Questionnaires, then New questionnaire. Give it a Title, an optional Description, and the Estimated minutes it takes. Participants see that estimate before they start, so run through the preview once, time yourself, and keep it realistic.

Choose Add item and pick a type. Each type in the list comes with a one-line description:

• Info text: a message with no question, such as an introduction or a section heading.
• Single choice: one question, with one answer picked from a list of choices.
• Rating scale: one or more statements rated on the same set of answers. Most standard instruments are built this way.
• Free text: a written answer.
• Number: a number as the answer, such as how many sessions someone has attended.

Tap an item in the list to edit it, and drag its handle to change the order. Any item except Info text can be marked Optional, which gives participants a Skip button. A hint, if you add one, appears under the question in smaller text.

Rating scales

A rating scale has Statements, which participants rate, and Scale points, the answers they choose from.

• Each statement is the actual question and gets its own screen, with the scale points listed underneath. Add at least one, and do not number them, because numbering is added for you.
• Each scale point has a Label, which participants see, and a Value, the number that appears in exports. Values must go up from the first point to the last, and a scale needs at least two points.
• The Item text is a short lead-in shown above each statement, for example “Over the last two weeks…”. If it only repeats the statement, participants see it once.

A new rating scale opens with one empty statement and two scale points ready to label.

One question with a few answers

For a single question such as “How familiar are you with mindfulness?”, use Single choice. The item text is the question and the choices are the answers. Values are numbered for you, in the order you list the choices. Use a Rating scale with one statement only when you need to set the value behind each answer yourself.

Saving your work

The item editor has a close button (X) at the top left and a tick at the top right. The tick stays dimmed until the item is complete. Tap it while it is dimmed and the editor tells you what is missing and marks the empty fields. If you close the editor with unsaved changes, the app asks before discarding them.

The questionnaire itself saves the same way: its tick stays dimmed until something has changed and every item is complete. For help on any of these screens, tap the (?) button at the top right of the item editor, the questionnaire builder or the Questionnaires screen.

Preview as participant shows exactly what people will see, one screen at a time, without saving anything. You can also Duplicate a questionnaire to make a variant, or Archive one you no longer use.

Putting a questionnaire on a course

A questionnaire reaches participants through a Questionnaire activity on your course template, or on a course that is already running, in the same way a meditation or a reminder does. The activity holds no questions of its own. It points to one of your organisation’s questionnaires, and each activity uses exactly one questionnaire and one phase.

• Questionnaire: which of your questionnaires the activity uses.
• Phase: Beginning of course, Mid-course, End of course or Custom.
• Response window (days): how long participants have to answer. Leave it empty to use the default.

Participants are prompted when they open the app, but they are never blocked from using it. For an end-of-course questionnaire the app also sends up to three notifications, spread across the response window, and stops as soon as someone completes it or says they are not taking part. Those notifications never name the questionnaire or the activity, so nothing appears on a lock screen that would suggest what is being measured.

Using the same questionnaire before and after a course

To measure change, put the same questionnaire on the template twice.

1. Make sure the questionnaire is on the Questionnaires screen. Write it or import it once; you do not need a second copy.
2. Add a Questionnaire activity near the start of the course. Choose the questionnaire and set Phase to Beginning of course.
3. Add a second Questionnaire activity near the end. Choose the same questionnaire again and set Phase to End of course.
4. Finish the wording before the course starts collecting answers. The questionnaire locks once it has answers, and any later change has to go into a new questionnaire.

There is nothing to link by hand. When a participant has answered the same questionnaire at the beginning and at the end, the results pair the two automatically. Their answers carry a Before & after badge, and scored instruments show the change in each score.

Pairing needs the very same questionnaire at both ends. A copy made with Duplicate to edit, or a second import of the same instrument, counts as a different questionnaire and is not paired with answers to the first.

One questionnaire per instrument

Keep each instrument as its own questionnaire. A Questionnaire activity uses exactly one questionnaire, so several instruments mean several questionnaires, each with its own activities.

• Two standard instruments, such as FFMQ-15 and WHO-5, are two questionnaires. Put each one at the beginning and at the end, which makes four activities in total.
• Each library import creates its own questionnaire and keeps its own scoring.
• Your own questions can all go into one questionnaire you write. Questionnaires you write collect answers but do not produce scores in this version.
• Participants complete each questionnaire as its own short set of screens. They are asked for consent only once per course.

What your participants see

The first time a participant opens a questionnaire on a course, they are shown a consent screen naming your organisation as the data controller, explaining what is collected and how it is stored. They confirm that they are 18 or older and agree to take part. That consent covers every questionnaire on the course, so it is asked once, unless the consent information changes later. Questionnaires are for adults only, and they are not available on guest accounts.

Taking part is genuinely optional. Someone can choose I’m not taking part and still use everything else in the course, and they can change their mind later. Each questionnaire is its own short set of screens. Once they have started, they answer one question per screen, their progress is saved as they go, and they can finish on a different device.

Once they have submitted a questionnaire, a participant can open it again on the course to see each question and the answer they gave. The button reads View my results when the questionnaire has scores, and View my answers when it does not. Where the same questionnaire is used more than once on a course, for example at the beginning and at the end, a participant does not see their earlier answers or scores until they have completed the later one, or their access to the course has ended, so that seeing them does not influence how they answer the second time. The screen tells them why. For questionnaires without scores, the screen also reminds them that their answers are not monitored, and suggests talking to their course staff, their GP or a local support service if anything in the questionnaire has worried them.

A participant can also stop at any time and choose whether to keep or delete the answers they have already given. If they delete their account, their questionnaire answers go with it, including answers they previously chose to keep. Once someone has stopped taking part, they can no longer open their answers in the app.

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