Evaluations
If students do not complete the evaluations consistently, how do you know if you are completing the course appropriately? Should there be an incentive for completing the evaluations?
Stephanie, Ro and all, ,
A very interesting idea—providing an incentive for completing evaluations. I like it.
Face it, we are all strapped for time and the end-of-the-course big evaluation is usually done under stress and rushing anyway. For most surveys I fill out, I’m rewarded simply wit that warm fuzzy “Good Guy†feeling – but that may not be enough with greater needs for family, sleep, work, etc. --- True whether formal or informal by the way.
So Ro, I wonder not only how good an evaluation assessment we are getting with such a small number of samples, but also the POTENTIAL relative skewing of THOSE samples themselves. (Are they mostly from the organized, finished early and oh-by-the-way-got-their-Christmas-shopping-done-in July student types, or the most happy with the course/instructor types, or the most ticked-off with the course/instructor types?) It would be interesting to correlate with student grades/performance. We could be fooling ourselves
The incentive would have to be substantial enough to make it worth their while ( 1 in a billion drawing prize won’t work…), ethical ( Dr. Kelly W, should it realy be course points, which imply COMPTETENCE, simply for evaluation completion?), and relatively consistently motivating across the entire class of students.
The added problem is how to measure or award any incentive in an evaluation tool that needs to be ANONYMOUS (Would they trust the anonymity guarantee- I’m not sure I would). Could a third party be somehow involved that just recorded a “Submitted -Yes/No†next to a name or not (Like public voting records which report what elections you voted in but NOT your vote) w/o making it so complex (Probably not the accounting firm of Price-Waterhouse, for example).
I also think the relevance and the wording of evaluations need to be closely looked at. (Such as closed-ended questions vs. open-ended questions and space for comments).
I must say I do like the course mention of the concept of “Start, Stop, Continue†questions but they are harder to tally and one must sift out the tendency to over interpret one-on minority views – especially those who might have an ax to grind.
Lastly, I think the most honest and complete evaluations I’ve ever filled out have involved a dual task: Evaluate MY performance, THEN the course/instructor. That’s longer, but worth investigating.
Dr. Karina,
That is great. It sounds like you create great communication environment.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I encourage my students to evaluation via email. It works perfectly fine!
Sara,
Great point. Assessment do NOT have to be formal!!!! They can be for you to assess a students individually or to look at the group progress as a whole. Both types of data are valuable.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Stephanie,
True, I at times have given "extra credit" for completion. Not much but some. It does help asses our students or at least one point to assess our student.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Roshawna,
There can be. You can provide extra points. (At least I do). This is part of the course for me.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Evaluations can also be informal and not necessary through an end of course survey. Students provide me feedback via email. Also, if I receive many questions regarding an assignment that tells me that I missed something.
Ro, I think there should be or could potentially be an argument for an incentive for completing evaluations. The information gathered is necessary. I also think that we can often understand the outcome of an evaluation based on the individual student. An evaluation is just one snap shot and if we look at the student overall for the term I think we can better assess if the evaluation accurately assesses if the student completed the course appropriately. What do you think?
