Focal Areas for Class Testing

We recommend soliciting student opinions on these key areas of your manuscript:

  • Presentation, coverage, and sequence of topics
  • Correlation of book content to class content
  • Accessibility of writing/level
  • Usefulness of pedagogical features such as key terms with definitions, learning objectives, boxed sidebars, and pre- or post-reading questions
  • Impact of content presentation on retention of information
  • Additional student needs

How to Solicit Student Feedback

Our authors have employed a variety of techniques to encourage student to provide feedback on their texts, including sharing surveys at the end of term, offering extra credit for student feedback, or simply asking what features in the book or general learning tools students find most useful. These comments can be used to further develop the first edition manuscript and, in some cases, inspire the creation of interactive elements and instructor resources.

We’ve created student questionnaires—one for original works/textbooks with contributed chapters and another for anthologies/readers—that you can build upon to create a survey that is personalized to your book and your students. You may also want to delete any questions that are not applicable to your book’s contents.

Feel free to download the survey template below that is most relevant for your book.

Template for Original or Contributed Manuscripts: https://cognella.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/OW-Student-Questionnaire.docx

Template for Anthologized Manuscripts: https://cognella.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Anthology-Student-Questionnaire.docx 

We’ve also created a questionnaire you can use to assess either fully interactive titles (interactive ebooks or Cognella Active Learning full courses) or Cognella Active Learning activities developed to supplement the textbook you use in your course.

Template for Interactive Content: https://cognella.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/interactivity_class_testing_questionnaire.docx

Unsure of next steps or have additional questions? Ask your project editor!