End of Course Evaluations

Image of man writing on paper

For information on the process, please visit the Provost Course Evaluation Page.

It is important to consider the length, quality and redundancy of each course evaluation, in order to reduce student fatigue and increase the quality of the information that students provide to instructors and the University about their course experiences. Remember that full-time students will often fill out 5 course evaluations. It is recommended that departments and instructors each add no more than 5 items to prevent surveys from becoming overly lengthy. The following suggestions are offered:

Assess Student Perceptions of Their Learning

We recommend that departments (and instructors) consider asking course evaluations about the degree to which students perceive that this course has helped them achieve either program learning outcomes or course learning outcomes. For programs, this can serve as a supplemental indirect assessment measure that can be reported in addition to the direct assessment you do of student work.

Evaluate Unique Forms of Pedagogy (Including Online Instruction)

Many disciplines have their own "signature pedagogy," the way that practitioners think the discipline is best taught, e.g., science labs or art studios or small discussion sections. Department or instructor evaluation questions are an excellent opportunity to ask the questions that are unique to your form of pedagogy.

Evaluate Dimensions of Teaching Not Captured by Other Questions

You may also find, when reflecting on the university and divisional questions, that they don't capture some dimension(s) of teaching that are important to your department or your specific class. Perhaps you really value some aspect of the teaching-learning experience and find that is not captured by university or divisional questions. Or perhaps you want to know whether students found something that you changed about your class to be useful.

Follow General Guidelines for Effective Survey Questions

As scholars, we all know that how you frame the question is fundamental to the answer you get. The same thing is true of course evaluation questions. If you are writing your own questions, you do not have to re-invent the wheel of how to construct survey questions. Examples can be found at nces.ed.gov [search for Best Practices].