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.
