Knowledge and experience exchange

SERVICE LEARNING

Common themes

How to carry out the mandatory survey for the Call

Within each of the four Calls under the Civic Engagement Programme of the Swiss-Croatian Cooperation Programme, one of the required indicators is a joint result based on surveys on citizens’ attitudes regarding their ability to influence changes in the local community.
In the Call “Strengthening the Contribution of Civil Society Organisations to Service Learning,” the survey must be conducted on at least 10 participants of project activities, using the entry (Questionnaire 1) and exit (Questionnaire 2) survey forms, which are part of the official application documentation.
Although the number of respondents is small, and unless you have set a higher target in your application, this requirement should be relatively easy to fulfil.

Where to start?

The first step is planning. Based on your project activities, you should determine the most practical moment and place to distribute the survey forms (available in the “Sample forms – implementation” folder of the call documentation).
Since this call focuses on education with a component of service-learning, targeting students, volunteers, civil society staff, and higher education staff, the best time to involve participants is at the beginning of the activities.
At this stage, it is important to note that, unless you use an online form (e.g. Google Forms), the survey will typically be distributed in paper form.

How to conduct the survey/research?

For a sample of 10 respondents, you will need to process all questionnaires and calculate percentages (and graphs) based on the answers.
The survey contains five questions of different types:

open-ended questions (Q1, Q3, Q5)
rating scale questions (Q4)
three-option questions (Q2)

The best approach is to use an Excel spreadsheet, where you structure the questions and enter responses, including fields such as age, reasons for participation, and similar descriptive data.

Open-ended answers require additional coding and grouping into categories before counting.

Once you have processed all responses and calculated percentages for each question, including descriptive ones, you will have completed the first phase of the analysis.

Surveys at the end of project activities

At the end of the project, the same process must be repeated using the final (exit) questionnaire, which is also part of the official documentation.

The results of the final survey should be compared with the baseline survey results. After calculating percentages and creating graphs, the findings should be reported to the Office for Cooperation with NGOs in the interim report.

Note that the responses to Questions 4 and 5 of the entry questionnaire should be compared with the responses to Questions 5 and 6 of the exit questionnaire.

All other responses, with the exception of the respondents’ age, should be analysed without comparison. They should simply be presented as they are, clearly indicating whether the results refer to the entry questionnaire or the exit questionnaire.

Can the survey be done faster?

Yes, the process can be accelerated by creating a Google Forms questionnaire and sending it via email to participants.

To do this, you must have a list of participants’ email addresses. These are usually collected during attendance registration at activities.

This brings you closer to efficient data collection.

How to create a Google Forms questionnaire?

Create the form in Google Forms and structure it according to the official template. In the introduction, include general project information (call name, reference number, applicant, partners, project name, and date of completion).

Follow the structure of the official sample questionnaires and ensure that you use the correct question types (e.g. Likert scale 1–5 where applicable).

Once completed, the form can be shared via email with participants, along with a deadline for submission.

Google Forms automatically compiles responses into a spreadsheet, making analysis much easier.
You can then process the data in Excel, create charts, and include them in your report.

In conclusion

Everything described for the entry survey also applies to the exit survey. The only difference is that at the end of the project you must provide a comparative analysis of results.

This means comparing baseline and final survey data and presenting the observed changes.

Good luck with your surveys!

Topic 1

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