Survey information sheet

[We have now completed collecting responses. Thank you very much to everyone who participated! We are updating this page successively with links to the resulting publications. If you have left an e-mail address, you have received updates via that channel as well.]

If you are teaching or learning a foreign language online, or know someone who is enrolled in an online language course, please check out and share our other current project on language learners’ perception of online learning effectiveness at L2grit.ils.uw.edu.pl ! The survey only takes around 17 minutes to complete.

Welcome to this survey being carried out by a team of researchers from the Institute of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warsaw! We intend to find out how different groups of teachers and students have been coping with the switch to emergency remote instruction during the COVID-19 epidemic. Specifically, we hope to better understand what circumstances, behaviours, attitudes and psychological traits make it easier to deal with the new reality, what challenges you have been facing, and what has helped you and your well-being. We believe you will relate to many of the questions here.
The survey is anonymous and has research (IRB) clearance from the Research Ethics Committee at the University of Warsaw (decision #57/2020). It should take from 25 to upwards of 45 minutes to complete, depending on the detailedness of your answers. You may abandon this survey at any time. Partial responses are saved as well, but only up to the last submitted page.
Your answers will only be used for scientific research and won’t be used for any commercial purposes. No information is collected that could identify your school. The results will be used in articles that will be submitted to scientific journals and books. If you want to know the results of the survey, you have the option to leave an e-mail address at the end. The e-mail will be doubly password-protected on a secure platform; after maximum one month it will be removed and securely stored offline in a password-protected file. Moreover, you will have the option to leave an e-mail address at the end if you agree to also take part in an optional 12-15-minute second stage of the survey once remote teaching has ended. In that case the e-mail will be used to send you a unique link to the follow-up survey; afterwards, to preserve complete anonymity the e-mail address will be removed from the database and replaced with a number.
You will answer questions about the circumstances surrounding your transition to remote instruction, your personal experiences, behaviours, attitudes, feelings, physical and mental health, and your personality traits. There are no specific risks involved in taking part in the survey. Some of the questions about your experiences during this period may be difficult for anxiety sufferers.
Once you have completed the survey, your answer will be saved in the dataset. If you decide to withdraw after completing this questionnaire, you may communicate this intention by writing to the lead researcher, Dr Michał B. Paradowski, at michal[dot]paradowski[-AT-]uw[dot]edu[dot]pl, citing the unique survey ID number that will be visible in your survey’s URL (in the address bar of your browser). Your answers will then be deleted at the earliest possible time.

We are aware of survey fatigue among the community, but hope our questionnaire is a bit different from others out there. Here are some respondents’ comments:
“Thank you for sharing this survey! I enjoyed completing it, and thought it was one of the more comprehensive and compassionate surveys I’ve done during this time.”
“Just completed this survey and I too would HIGHLY recommend that you spend some time completing it. It’s LONG as surveys go, so grab yourself a good cup of tea/coffee and some nibbles and find yourself a quiet space, it’s going take over half an hour, but I can safely say I have never felt that a survey could be life affirming but this is! It actually made me feel better. It’s like your own personal therapist at these difficult times. Thank you! Well done.”
“I was able to relate all the questions to my experiences. I appreciated that the survey seemed to focus on the educator as a whole person rather than just a ‘provider of lessons and materials’.”
“This was kind of cathartic for me.”

If you have any questions, you may contact the lead researcher at the above e-mail address. Thank you in advance for honest responses!

The surveys are accessible at the respective addresses below:

for ᴇᴅᴜᴄᴀᴛᴏʀs in subjects other than language: https://www.surveygizmo.eu/s3/90234272/educators
for ʟᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇ ᴛᴇᴀᴄʜᴇʀs: https://www.surveygizmo.eu/s3/90232548/language-teachers
for ɪɴsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛᴏʀs ᴀɴᴅ TAs ɪɴ Lɪɴɢᴜɪsᴛɪᴄs, Mᴏᴅᴇʀɴ Lᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇs, Lᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇ Tᴇᴀᴄʜɪɴɢ and related fields: https://www.surveygizmo.eu/s3/90232576/Linguistics-instructors
for ʟᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇ ʟᴇᴀʀɴᴇʀs: https://www.surveygizmo.eu/s3/90232669/language-learners
for sᴛᴜᴅᴇɴᴛs ᴍᴀᴊᴏʀɪɴɢ ɪɴ Lɪɴɢᴜɪsᴛɪᴄs, Mᴏᴅᴇʀɴ Lᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇs, Lᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇ Tᴇᴀᴄʜɪɴɢ and related fields: https://www.surveygizmo.eu/s3/90232892/Linguistics-students

If you know colleagues, students or friends who qualify and might be willing to fill in any of the surveys, please feel free to forward the relevant link(s). Thank you!

Stay safe and healthy!

Michał B. Paradowski & Magdalena Jelińska
Institute of Applied Linguistics
University of Warsaw