Low Participation in Course Evaluation

[dismalist]

If there is a chance to write a new survey, keep the number of questions low. The survey where I ran a program was written by a bunch of administrators to total about 40 questions. The most intelligent student comment I ever saw said: The people who write these surveys should first take our course on Survey Research Methods! The only question on our survey that I liked was: I learned a lot in this course [answer from 1 to 5]. Everything else was either correlated with that question or meaningless touchy-feely stuff.

One might allow a single sentence comment, limited to 20 words or so.

[marshwiggle]

At the uni where I did my EdD, they attempted to rework the evaluation system.

First thing they discovered was, after applying super-sophisticated statistical models, was that students who liked the professor personally rated them highly. Those who didn't like the prof gave them low ratings. This was depicted on a chart as a big clustery blob of data points.

This was observed on RateMyProfessors, where there is a score (out of 5) for easiness and another (out of 5) for quality. But it's also easy to correct for; if you do a fit for how quality varies with easiness, then you can see which profs are rated higher for quality than would be predicted by their easiness rating, and which are rated lower for quality than would be predicted by their easiness rating. The math is pretty easy.

[polly_mer]

We do still have Jedi Mind Tricks and it could use some more tips like good ones on this thread. <hint, hint>

[the-tenure-track-prof]

Eventually, the participation rate in course evaluation was above 60% among students which is not bad considering the circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The scores on a scale from 1-4 ranged from 3-3.71. What I did notice is angry comments from students in a class that was originally designed as a face to face class.
What was odd to me is that the students in the face to face course expressed anger as if the course is taught under normal circumstances and acted as if there is no pandemic whatsoever. Note that this is a school in the south where awareness to the pandemic is not particularly high. The school, however, is meticulous about implementing CDC guidelines and health safety rules. The dean and the university send messages to faculty and students several times a week. I did follow the instructions from our administrators and sent the same messages of safety and support and relaxed course requirements and grading in all my courses. In the original online classes, almost all students were thankful in their evaluations for the arrangements and extensions that I`ve provided whereas in the face to face class that was converted to online due to the pandemic, students didn't even mention that I`ve provided support including extensions, relaxed requirements and many messages where I literally extended myself to support my students.

Earlier our dean told us that the school expects that students may express angry comments in their course evaluations due to the logistic and administrative changes in their school life. He also told us that the faculty will not be held responsible for angry comments from students. Could this difference in comments between the online classes and the converted class to online format be due to the fact that the class was face to face?.

I am curious if anyone has had any experience with students expressing anger in their course evaluation?.

[doc700]

At least at my university those averages would be good/strong.  I'm not sure what the baseline is for you school but the numbers dont sound problematic.

I haven't seen my course evaluations for the semester yet.  I did talk to some of the undergrads at the end of the term.  They recognized that their professors made the best of the situation and in our school had no prior experience in online teaching.  They seemed pretty forgiving in their conversations and in short 2-3 question surveys I gave them during the transition/the second half of the term. 

That said, the students were hesitant to fill in course evaluations and give positive scores to all of their professors to acknowledge this effort.  They thought this information would be used against them in the fall where the school would argue that they should open online and of course you need to pay full tuition/can't take a semester off since look at these course evaluations, you all found online teaching great.  I wish our school would have given them a survey about online education/the transition and a second form about each of the individual courses so they didn't need to rant on the course evals.

[ciao_yall]

Yes.

That said, the students were hesitant to fill in course evaluations and give positive scores to all of their professors to acknowledge this effort.  They thought this information would be used against them in the fall where the school would argue that they should open online and of course you need to pay full tuition/can't take a semester off since look at these course evaluations, you all found online teaching great.  I wish our school would have given them a survey about online education/the transition and a second form about each of the individual courses so they didn't need to rant on the course evals.

We, like others, thrashed our way into an online program for Spring 2020. As a student myself taking Spanish, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Our faculty, including my colleague/professor, rallied and got it done. Some good came out of it as some nifty features in Canvas were discovered, and many students received free laptops so they didn't always have to come to the computer lab to do their homework. Drop rates were not as bad as feared.

Still, we are starting to get the gaslighty "Nobody died trying so ONLINE IS THE THING!" announcements. Faculty are a bit on the defensive if they say they don't think the online experience is as good as the in-class, and that Zoom breakouts/online discussions are not as effective for learning as group discussions and activities "Because YOU ARE AN OLD FART WHO RESISTS CHANGE!"

As a CC we are always balancing the desire for students to have the traditional residential college experience versus living at home for 2 more years and saving money.

Wondering what will happen to enrollments in Fall if classes are 100% online again. Likely they will be up... while funding is down.

[the_geneticist]

Our graduate TAs took it on themselves to survey the undergraduate students and their thoughts on the online experience.  Bottom line: the students hated it.  They want to take classes in person, especially for their upper division classes and lab classes.  They don't like how hard it is to interact with their instructors and peers through Zoom.  They don't like that most of their lecture classes are just a pre-recorded lecture or slide deck.  They don't like living back at home and having to balance family responsibilities like homeschooling their siblings with their coursework.

The college Dean looked at those results and basically said "thanks for doing our job for us, sounds like you just need to do a better job teaching."

[mamselle]

That's just plain mean.

M.

[doc700]

Our university has also told us we need to spend all summer revamping the course catalog and coming up with new "learning experiences" for students.  That may be a good thing to do, but the implication is that students will return in the fall (even on Zoom) if only we come up with some creative new seminar to entice them.  I agree my only course can be better as I had no experience/time to transition and in general our education could be improved.  That said, I think the students mostly hate learning online since they hate staring at a screen, being at home (taking care of siblings etc), hate being in different time zones and thus taking class at 4 AM, miss their sports/activities/research experiences/social life on campus etc.  The administration seems to think if we just made a new class the students would be so wow'ed they would return in the fall when in it seems that the specifics of online learning is very little of their decision...

Our graduate TAs took it on themselves to survey the undergraduate students and their thoughts on the online experience.  Bottom line: the students hated it.  They want to take classes in person, especially for their upper division classes and lab classes.  They don't like how hard it is to interact with their instructors and peers through Zoom.  They don't like that most of their lecture classes are just a pre-recorded lecture or slide deck.  They don't like living back at home and having to balance family responsibilities like homeschooling their siblings with their coursework.

The college Dean looked at those results and basically said "thanks for doing our job for us, sounds like you just need to do a better job teaching."