Post from April 8, 2018
#Moodle offers few activities that can be used in a similar way: #questionnaire, #feedback, and #survey. I would say that the best way to use them is for collecting a feedback or polling students. I will leave Survey activity out of this post because it is less flexible and provides us with already developed lists of questions in predetermined formats (ATTLS and COLLES).
Questionnaire and Feedback are very similar activities in Moodle. They provide us with options for collecting responses to the set types of questions. We can do it either anonymously or not. However there are some differences. Lets review each of them separately to understand how they can be used.
Feedback
Allows you to construct the polling using following types of questions: short text answer, text answer, multiple choice, numeric answer. You can organize your questions page(s) by using: labels, information, page breaks, and captcha. Feedback allows you to set opening and closing time for the activity and collect answers either anonymously or with usernames attached to the answers.
Questionnaire
Allows you to build your polling by using following types of questions: check boxes, date, drop down, numeric, radio buttons, rate (1-5), text box, essay, and Yes/No answer. You can organize your questions page by using labels only. Feedback allows you to set opening and closing time for the activity and collect answers either anonymously or with usernames attached to the answers. It also allows to show responses to the questionnaire to respondents either immediately after submission, after questionnaire closed, or never. Questionnaire can be a graded activity.
You can see that Questionnaire has more features and probably will be preferred option for most of you.
Why use the Questionnaire in your courses?
Consider using questionnaire to poll students. You might need to do it for different reasons.
Here are some creative uses:
Course evaluations.
Evaluations for group work in the course (could be graded).
Collecting/polling opinions (to determine areas of further study, need of explanation, or weak spots).
Assess initial or prerequisite knowledge of a topic by the class.
Although Questionnaire can be used in any type of delivery of online courses, it all depends on how you want to use them. It has more possible applications for paced, group study courses.