Electronic voting

Numbers: a large group activity.

Pros and cons:

Useful for: getting quantitative data in response to multiple choice questions. It may be one stage in a larger plan of involvement or used to check how findings from other enquiry compare to the responses of the participants casting their votes.  Some people who prefer to give feedback anonymously may like this approach to giving feedback. This can be a good method for people who have difficulties with speaking or writing responses.

Downsides and risks: used on its own, you are limited to the answers you see on the screen, but if used with discussion alongside the voting process, you may also be able to gain further insights about why people chose to vote a particular way. 

Time: it can be completed fairly quickly and results may be produced immediately and saved automatically into reports that can be downloaded for reference after the voting session. 

Cost: if your organisation already has electronic voting kits, the cost may be minimal.  If you need to hire or buy equipment that could require some budget. If this is an activity at a conference type event, there may be other costs associated with participant travel, hotels, refreshments and so on. 

Preparation:

• developing questions
  • include one or two fun questions so people can practice before they have to give a real response - is important. 
  • Use our guidance about questions to help reflect on what types of question you want to ask.
  • Test your questions with people with dementia ahead of the event to check their meaning is clear and unambiguous - so you can tweak them if necessary ahead of the voting session.
  • Make sure you know how many, and what, voting buttons, people will have to choose from at the voting session - so that your question response options match them (it can be confusing if slides offer a choice of A to D while voting handsets are 1 to 4, for example).

How to facilitate the voting session:

• Introduce yourself, the purpose of the activity, the voting process and check everyone understands how to use their device.
• Test their understanding and ability to use the voting buttons with 1 or 2 fun practice questions, before moving on to the real questions.
• Discuss the results for each question voted on - they will show up on the screen immediately, offering opportunities to learn about why people chose different options.
• Close by letting people know what will happen next about the voting results - how they will be used.