Once again, the College of Human Services (CHS), College of Teacher Education and Leadership (CTEL), and New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (NCAIS) at the West campus will be stressing to students the importance of participating in online course evaluations.
All three colleges have piloted the online administration of instructor/course evaluations previously, but none of these pilots has been conducted using a system specifically designed for online instructor/course evaluation administration.
According to Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, an assistant professor in CTEL, the college will be embedding a student-response text box online for each instructor/course evaluation item so that students may "grade" their instructors in more traditional terms, while also being able to respond in writing to each item about which they have an opinion.
"In terms of delivery expectations, I think CHS, CTEL and NCAIS are expecting what researchers have prepared us to expect — a considerable dip in student-response rates," Beardsley said. "We might see small increases or decreases in course averages, but instructors who were evaluated as most effective before will still be evaluated as most effective online and vice versa."
Though the colleges have discouraged the use of other external incentives to drive student-response rates, one student has acknowledged that by participating, students will help in raising their, and future students', standard of education at the University.
"The incentive is that we can actually have a voice," said Adam Seibel, a communication junior. "For all those students who complain all semester, this is their chance to do something about it. That alone is enough incentive for me."
Seibel said he appreciates that the evaluations are being conducted online, so students can finish them at their own convenience.
"As students, we all dread having to do any extra work that we are not getting a grade for," he said. "I was pleased to find how efficient the process actually was, [but] there will obviously be a percentage of students who won't complete the survey because their hands aren't being held through the process."
However, that hasn't stopped some professors from encouraging students to participate in the online course evaluations, Beardsley said.
"Instructors do not realize that by offering these incentives they are biasing results," she added. "If I am an excelling student in a class with an instructor I don't think is very good and she offers me extra credit points to evaluate her, I might not be as likely to evaluate her because I don't need the extra credit points."
Beardsley said many faculty members adjust their teaching methods by using what students have to say and that colleges might work with faculty with student feedback data to help develop and improve upon their instructional approaches.
"Students register for their classes online, students get their grades online — a lot of what students learn these days occurs online," she said. "The online evaluation should be just one more link in this chain."
Reach the reporter at: joseph.hermiz@asu.edu.
