Why an onboarding questionnaire prevents student failure
Hi,
Welcome to this week's edition of Course Builder's Corner. Today we talk about the importance of an onboarding questionnaire when you run a cohort-based course.
Just asking a few questions up front can prevent many problems down the road.
Let's find out what they are.
Rodney
When students join your course, they are often full of enthusiasm and hope. Some of these hopes will be dashed based on a few common misunderstandings. If you can discover and correct them early you can get more of your students to succeed.
One way to do that is with a simple onboarding questionnaire.
The onboarding questionnaire asks three types of questions.
Basic information questions
Goal questions
Workload question
The basic information questions ask for the students name, phone number and web address.
The goals questions ask them to tell you what they want to achieve in your course.
The workload question asks students to estimate the time they think they'll spend on the course.
Here's what a version of this questionnaire looks like for one of the courses I run each year.
Sample questionnaire
Subj: You are in (and your next step)
Hi ~Contact.FirstName~, this is Rodney.
Hooray, you're in. It's going to be quite an exciting journey.
Only one thing you need to do at this stage.
Fill in this questionnaire and send it back to us.
- Your name & name of your company (if applicable)
- Your Phone Number
- Your Website (If Any)
- What do you want to achieve with the Course? The more specific you are the better my understanding and the more I will be able to help you.
- If there were one thing you'd want to get from this course, what would that one thing be?
- How many hours are you willing to put in each week to get results?
Do complete this step today.
Rodney Daut
Here's three reasons to ask these questions when students join your course.
Reason 1: Students often misunderstand the course's focus. Yes, it's possible that despite your clear marketing materials, that people make inaccurate assumptions about what they'll learn in the course. During onboarding we want to correct these assumptions. This avoids disappointment.
Reason 2: Students often underestimate the course workload. Some courses require very little work. Some require a lot. But very few tell the students how many hours they'll require. And even if you do, how do you know they heard you? By asking how many hours they're willing to put in, you get a number. Then you can validate or invalidate this number well before the course begins.
Reason 3: You gain insight into your students. You can discover new ways your course can help your students by starting a conversation about goals with them. You can even use some of these insights to improve the course.
The onboarding questionnaire is a simple addition to most online courses. It does take time to read and respond to each questionnaire, but the payoff is well worth it.
And before you go, you may want to check out any of the following:
The Atomic Course Blueprint- Want to create a course without the usual overwhelm? Try creating a tiny course. Find out more here.
iPARA: How to organize your digital life for action- Is digital disorganization keeping you from reaching your goals? What if just four folders could let you not just stay organized but actually get things done. See for yourself here.
That’s it for this week.