The 2012 Survey of Course Evaluation in Higher Education

The 2012 Survey of Course Evaluation in Higher Education has now ended and the results are enlightening and surprising.  Deans and Directors from 280 colleges and universities participated, answering questions about the content, costs, procedures, and reporting used in institute-wide course evaluation.  Open-ended questions yielded hundreds of ideas and concerns about response rates, mobile technology, incentives, and faculty participation. 

When asked, “What one question about course evaluation practices would you pose to your colleagues?”, 39 of the 137 unique answers centered around response rate (e.g., “What are the best ways to increase response rate for electronic evaluations?”) and 13 of the answers involved incentives (e.g., “What incentives do you offer students to complete an online course evaluation?”).

When asked “What concerns do you and/or your colleagues have about the evaluation process in place at your institution?”, 92 of the 191 answers centered around response rate.

Clearly, participation in web-based course evaluation is the #1, #2, and #3 concern for college administrators.  I will continue to post tried-and-true solutions to this problem on both the blog and the Most FAQ page.  Each week I’ll also post both a Question and a Concern submitted by a College Dean or Director to facilitate discussion on these topics.  I hope you will join in with answers based on your own experience and practices at your institution.