Database design questions! Tables for pre/post tests

[karicrystal]

I'm not very familiar with coding, so I figured you guys could help me out!

I have a group of students, and I want to compare their pre and post tests answers. The test is 20 questions.

So the pre-test and post-test are exactly the same. We administer the pre-test before the program with questions like:

How much do you agree with the following statements?

1. I like math.
Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree

2. I like to work with my hands.
Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree

and so forth for the next 18 questions.

Then after the students complete the program, we administer the same survey again (the post test). And what I'm looking to do is compare the answers to the two tests for each question and see if there's an increased interest in a particular question. We do this for each student in the program.

What would be the best way to organize the data in tables?

Should I do one table for pre-test answers and one for post test? Should I just have one table for tests and have a field designating pre/post? Which would be easiest to run analysis on?

Thank you so much!

 

[KingBroil]

Hi,

I think that a good way to start is by reading on data normalization. A lot of peoples suggested this to me and it changed my approach to database design.

For your specific inquiry, I would go like this:

Tables (fields):

-Students (First name, last name, adress, phone, etc...)
-Tests (Date, Subject, class, test name, test type, Test #,etc...) 'Here, test type could include "pre" and "post" in the choices
-Student_Test ( StudentID, TestID, result)

* StudentID and TestID are primary keys imported from those respective tables in the Student_Test table.

That way, you will have all the results you want to perform calculations on in the same table, which I think is good organization of data.

And I suggest using a form to enter the data in those tables and link them together.

Hope this helps.