O n f e r e n c e

 
I found the online task useful for my language learning 
3,89 
0,85 
 
The online task helped me discover new things about the 
other culture 
3,77 
0,81 
 
I would suggest to a friend to take part in this kind of online 
collaboration 
3,83 
0,90 
 
I would like to use online tasks with students from other 
countries more often 
4,07
2 
0,84 

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-196- 
2014 CALL Conference 
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be 
However, most young students will need their teacher’s help to be able to process the 
questions asked. Research shows that from the age of 7 students should be able to 
complete a questionnaire and provide meaningful and reliable data, however, some 
degree of language adaptation will be required (Bell, 2007). Consequently, the questions 
used for our research questionnaires were simplified and kept to the minimum number of 
words possible to maintain their simplicity and straightforwardness. The average number 
of words per question is 9, with 14 being the maximum. 
The type of questions included was a further consideration. Yes/No items are always 
easier to answer, however, in most cases a Likert-scale format was more suited to the 
this study’s research purposes. Once again, most adults are familiar with Likert scale 
questionnaires, but this may rarely be true for children.
In this case, it is advisable to include completely-labelled scales -as opposed to partially-
labelled ones- and verbal labels 
–
rather than numeric ones. Using smiley faces may also 
be effective (Bell, 2007). Bearing this in mind, the statements 
included in the students’ 
questionnaires presented completely-
labelled verbal scales, i.e. “Strongly disagree”, 
“Disagree”, “Neither agree nor disagree”, “Agree”, “Strongly agree”. Other data collection 
formats may be used, such as learning diaries, although they are more time-consuming 
and they need to be integrated somehow in the curriculum.
The questionnaire’s length must also be born in mind, as it may be more tiring for 
children to complete an extensive questionnaire and they may even stop providing 
meaningful answers. This phenomenon is known as “satisficing” and it means that 
“
instead of going through the full question-answer process, a respondent appeals to 
some other principle in order to reach a response, e.g. simply choosing the first option on 
the list, or answering every question in the positive (Bell, 2007:462). The student 
questionnaire distributed for this study comprises a total of 40 items, which was already 
described as excessive by some of the participating school teachers. An attempt was 
made to further limit the number of items, although it was decided that this might 
compromise the quality and comprehensiveness of the data gathered. As a result, a 
decision was made to limit the research topics that the subjects would be asked about 
and to use separate cohorts for subsequent research studies. 
Finally, the logistics of gathering data from school students must also be mentioned. 
Lessons are usually 45-50 minutes-long. In this time, teachers must get their students 
ready for the tasks that will be performed, make sure that the technology is ready and 
working, support their students in successfully completing the task, make sure that there 
is time left to fill in the relevant questionnaires, provide any guidance required to this 
end and collect and keep the completed questionnaires in a safe place. Research activity 
in the classroom adds an extra element to an already busy and stressful environment. In 
an attempt to simplify the data collection process, all the questionnaires used for the 
present study were circulated in electronic format via the specific Moodle sites used for 
every task. Students quickly learnt where to find them and easily adapted to the routine 
of completing the questionnaires at the end of every session and teachers did not have to 
worry about collecting the answered questionnaires.