UIS Course Survey System

The is available for a period of time at the end of each term or part of term. The Provost's office will email faculty with specific information regarding the course survey period each term. Instructors may view and download course survey results after final grades have been submitted at the end of each semester.

Strategies for Increasing Course Survey Response Rates

The Timing

A barrier for course survey completion is timing the survey close to finals (Cottreau & Hatfield 2001).  At UIS, course surveys become available three weeks prior to the end of the semester for full-term courses. Thus, begin asking for feedback as soon as the course survey opens for your course!

You might be concerned that that timing may be too early to get accurate feedback from students, as not all activities and assignments have yet been completed.  Research has shown, however, that the results of course surveys completed earlier in a course are highly correlated with results of course surveys completed finals week or after (McNulty et al. 2010).  Not only do you increase the likelihood of having a higher response rate, students completing surveys earlier provided more qualitative feedback than students completing surveys later (McNulty et al. 2010). 

The Method

Course Surveys at UIS are administered online. Not all courses are eligible for evaluation. For example, to protect student confidentiality, courses with fewer than three enrolled students are not eligible and Course Surveys will not be available for these courses. Designate class time for students to complete evaluations using laptops or mobile devices (Young, Joines, & Gallagher, 2019).

The Frequency

Post course feedback survey announcements as many times and in as many places as you can:

  • Post the link in your syllabus.
  • Create a specific announcement about the course survey.
  • Include the link to the Course Survey App in other emails and announcements until the end date (e.g., "And remember the course evaluation is available at x until x date.").
  • Put a link to the survey inside your course modules for each week it is open.

Tell Students Why It鈥檚 Important

Remind students why course surveys are important at UIS (see below) and remind them that you cannot see the feedback until after final grades are due and that it will not impact their grade in any way.  Students are more likely to respond if they knew how their surveys will be used and what decisions their responses will influence (Kidd & Latif 2003, Anderson et al. 2005; Cottreau & Hatfield 2001; Hatfield & Coyle 2013).  The largest factor for not completing surveys is that students believe the surveys will not result in change or would not benefit them (Hatfield & Coyle 2013).

Gamification

In the new course survey tool, UIS instructors can see the completion percentage for each of their classes. Gamify the completion of the course survey by sharing progress with students and setting class-wide goals (e.g., 鈥淚f 80% of the class completes the survey, everyone earns 2 extra credit points鈥�) can be highly effective (Goodman, Anson, & Belcheir, 2014).

Monitor response rates throughout the survey period and share the progress with students. Setting class-wide goals (e.g., 鈥淚f 80% of the class completes the survey, everyone earns 2 extra credit points鈥�) can be highly effective (Goodman, Anson, & Belcheir, 2014). While incentives鈥攂oth point-based and non-point-based鈥攃an significantly boost participation, they should be used thoughtfully and in consultation with department policies. Ultimately, employing multiple strategies鈥攕uch as reminders, transparency, and structured opportunities鈥攈as been shown to yield the highest response rates and most meaningful feedback (Chapman & Joines, 2017; Young et al., 2018).

Sample Course Announcement

The course feedback survey is now open for this course. Course surveys are a very important tool for improving the quality of classes at UIS. Please take a few moments to fill out the survey for this class and any others you may be taking that have . These surveys are available only through <insert deadline date from Course Survey App>. Faculty do not see the results of course surveys until after final grades are submitted for the semester. Thanks for taking the time to fill them out!

Why are Course Feedback Surveys Important at UIS?

Goal #1 of the UIS Strategic Plan states that 鈥淯IS will achieve academic excellence through excellence in teaching and learning and excellence in scholarship.鈥�  Action Step #4 of the UIS Strategic Plan states that UIS will 鈥淚mprove the assessment of learning outcomes and of teaching; use aggregated information from course evaluations to inform faculty development programming:  a) Establish and fund a program to support improvements in the assessment of learning outcomes and program review.  b) Adopt a new course evaluation instrument.  c) Implement a multidimensional approach to teaching evaluation.  d) Use the data from the improved teaching evaluation approach as the basis for issues addressed in faculty development programs.鈥�

Completion of student Course Surveys is imperative in evaluating curricular trends and teaching effectiveness, particularly if no other assessment methods are performed (Hatfield & Coyle 2013). Research suggests that student ratings of courses and faculty are a reliable and useful method of evaluating teaching and course effectiveness (Kidd & Latif 2003).  In fact, student evaluations are as reliable as peer evaluations, provided that response rates are good (Paulsen 2002).  However, Course Surveys should be used in conjunction with other evaluation tools, such as the peer evaluation and a teaching portfolio, when evaluating the effectiveness of an instructor.  More information about the use of Course Surveys at UIS can be found in the Faculty Personnel Policy. Research has found that faculty members receiving the best evaluations are not always the most effective teachers according to students (Surratt & Desselle 2007).  The Dr. Fox Effect, as seen in the following video, suggests that a highly expressive presenter can earn high evaluations even when the content presented is nonsensical.

References

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Hatfield, Catherine & Coyle, Elizabeth. (2013). Factors That Influence Student Completion of Course and Faculty Evaluations. American journal of pharmaceutical education. 77. 27. 10.5688/ajpe77227.

McNulty, J. A., Gruener, G., Chandrasekhar, A., Espiritu, B., Hoyt, A., & Ensminger, D. (2010). Are online student evaluations of faculty influenced by the timing of evaluations? Advances in Physiology Education, 34, 213鈥�216.