Comparability of Data Gathered from Evaluation Questionnaires on Paper and Through the Internet

Collecting feedback from students through course, program and other evaluation questionnaires has become a costly and time consuming process for most colleges. Converting to data collection through the internet, rather than completion on paper, can result in a cheaper and more efficient process. This article examines several research questions which need to be answered to establish that results collected by the two modes of administration are equivalent. Data were gathered for a program evaluation questionnaire from undergraduate students at a university in Hong Kong. Students were able to choose between completion on paper or through the internet. In six of the seven Faculties the number of responses through each mode was roughly the same. Students in the Engineering Faculty favored the internet. Scores on the 14 out of 18 scales in the instrument showed small differences by mode of response, which became smaller still with controls for pertinent demographic variables. The main response question addressed in the study was whether there was any difference in the way respondents to the two modes interpreted the questions. The study demonstrated the equivalence of the two data sets by showing that both could be fitted to a common model with structural equation modeling (SEM). Five levels of tests of invariance further confirmed the comparability of data by mode of administration. This study, therefore suggests that changing to internet collection for course and program evaluations will not affect the comparability of ratings.     

Internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the Attitude toward Muslim Proximity Index (AMPI): a measure of social distance

The Attitude toward Muslim Proximity Index (AMPI) is a six‐item scale that uses tolerance to different degrees of social distance to assess prejudice towards Muslims. It was tested on 1777 teenage school children from northern England who indicated their religion as either ‘Christian’ or ‘no religion’, and demonstrated good internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = .81). The index was higher among pupils who supported the views of the British National Party and among those who believed that British Muslims should adopt Western culture; but lower among those who knew Muslims or had Muslim friends. The AMPI is a useful measure of Islamophobic attitudes that does not rely on responses to specific events or on detailed knowledge of the Muslim religion.     

So how big is big? Investigating the impact of class size on ratings in student evaluation

Australian universities have a long history of use of student satisfaction surveys. Their use has expanded and purpose changed over time. The surveys are often viewed as distorted by external influences such as discipline context, class size and year level of participants. This paper reports on the results of a large-scale investigation interrogating the influence of class size on student satisfaction ratings. The investigation was conducted at a large, comprehensive, research-intensive Australian university. It drew on the data from a survey administered to all students in all units of undergraduate and postgraduate study conducted across the university over four semesters. Data were collated into four class size categories. This categorised data were subjected to statistical analyses. This paper discusses the approach taken, the results of the analysis and their implications for student evaluation of teaching and learning.     

Student evaluation of courses: what predicts satisfaction?

The main goals of course evaluations are to obtain student feedback regarding courses and teaching for improvement purposes and to provide a defined and practical process to ensure that actions are taken to improve courses and teaching. Of the items on course evaluation forms, the one that receives the most attention and consequently the most weight is the question, ‘Overall, I was satisfied with the quality of this course.’ However, no attention has been placed on examining the predictors of students being ‘satisfied with the quality of this course’ overall. This study attempts to address this gap. The findings show that while student characteristics and reasons for enrolling in a course are predictors of overall satisfaction, it is the evaluation questions that predict the majority of the variation in course satisfaction. The findings also reveal that faculty‐selected optional questions are stronger predictors of overall satisfaction than compulsory questions.     

A systematic analysis of quality of teaching surveys

All tertiary institutions in Australia use the same Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ); however, for the internal evaluation of teaching they use their own surveys. This paper performs an analysis of the internal Quality of Teaching Surveys (QTS) used in Australian universities. We classify the questions within the QTS surveys. This classification is used to explore how different universities’ surveys are similar to each other. We find that some universities use a QTS that is quite distinct from other universities. We also investigate whether there is a particular pattern to the types of questions used in the surveys. We find that there are some question types that are employed widely in a typical survey and others that are not. This analysis can be used by universities to determine how their surveys compare to their peer institutions and other institutions across Australia.     

新建本科院校学生网上评教活动影响因素研究

运用问卷调查法,对影响新建本科院校学生网上评教活动的评教态度、评教心理等因素进行了调查。结果表明:学生评教态度对网上评教活动的影响各年级之间差异较大,而学生评教心理对网上评教活动的影响各年级之间没有明显差异。     

Parent Surveys for Teacher Evaluation

Parent or guardian perceptions play a specialized role in the evaluation of school teachers. Parents are important stakeholders in teacher success, they are in some instances partners in the teachers' work, parents have unique personal information about student learning, and they can report on the teacher duties to inform parents about the classroom and child progress. This study analyzed the responses of parents to 12 survey items concerning teacher performance in 201 classrooms. The surveys were used as part of an innovative teacher evaluation program in which teachers elected to include parent feedback as one objective data source for annual review. In this study three factors emerged as important concerns for parents: humane treatment of students, support for pupil learning, and effective communication and collaboration with parents. Recommendations for use of specific survey items can be based on the empirical results of this sampling. The data gathered by parent surveys define one dimension of quality which may vary in importance from one teacher to another.     

工科院校大学生学习满意度测评模型研究

研究采用文献资料法、专家访谈法和问卷调查法,遵循客观性原则、辩证发展原则和理论联系实际原则,构建大学生学习满意度测评模型。结果表明：量表包括：＂教师教学＂、＂课程内容＂、＂硬件建设＂、＂校园文化和管理服务＂四个指标。通过探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析,该量表具有良好的信效度,各项指标均符合心理测量学标准。     

The Impact of Lottery Incentives on Student Survey Response Rates

Lottery incentives are widely used by institutional researchers despite a lack of research documenting the effectiveness of postpaid incentives in general and lottery incentives in particular. A controlled experiment tested the effects of lottery incentives using a prospective college applicant Web survey, with e-mails sent to more than 9,000 high school students. The impact of the level of lottery incentive on response rates and response bias is discussed.     

Coherence between text comments and the quantitative ratings in the UK’s National Student Survey

Institutions are understandably interested in the profile of their own reputations based upon publicly available data about student experiences. The UK’s National Student Survey (NSS) metrics are integrated into several ‘Good University’ calculations, whereas teaching teams most often use the survey’s text comments to change practices, rather than the metrics directly. There is little information about how messages from the national survey’s text comments relate to the accompanying numerical ratings, partly because text comments are confidential to the institution and unavailable for wide-scale research. We categorised institutional NSS text comments into themes that mirrored those of the original questionnaire. Comparisons were made between frequencies of thematic comments and the national ratings of satisfaction for several subject areas. For the first time, we demonstrate broad agreement between comments about measures of teaching staff and course organisation with the performance of the subject areas (compared to metrics of their national counterparts). These findings are consistent with previous quantitative models predicting the most important factors that most influence overall satisfaction ratings. We intend this study to be a catalyst for other institutions to explore their non-publicly available, textual returns in a similar way. The outcomes of this type of work are pertinent to all countries that use large-scale surveys. However, institutions will need to release findings to a public audience if we are to gain a national/international perspective on this key linkage between publicly available metrics and the associated text comments.     

把握《语文课程标准》培养学生语文综合素质

对即将展开的新课程标准进行阐述，结合中小学实际，具有一定的时代意义。     

基于因子分析法的在线开放课程效能评价体系构建研究

随着\"互联网+\"行动计划的快速推进,现代信息技术和高等教育教学的深度融合,在线开放课程的建设在各高校掀起了一定的热潮。越来越多的高校把推进加强在线开放课程建设作为提高其教育教学质量的关键,但对于在线开放课程的课程质量评价却还没有形成真正结合自身特点的评价体系。文章基于课程效能理论,以高等院校的在线开放课程为研究对象,通过实证调查和定量分析,提出了多维度、多阶段的在线开放课程效能评价指标和影响因素,并尝试构建了在线开放课程的效能评价体系模型,以保障在线开放课程的可持续性健康发展。     

高职院校服务质量实证研究——以我国27个省、市、自治区高职院校应届毕业生抽样调查为例

根据用户满意度理论和利益相关者理论,编制\"学生评价高等职业教育服务质量评量表\",并对我国27个省、市、自治区28所高职院校应届毕业生进行在线抽样调查。结果显示,学生的总体满意度较低,为74分,期望值为81.4分,满意度与期望值的差距值为7.36分;学生对\"关心学生\"、\"入学与学籍管理\"、\"收费\"、\"校园安全\"评价较高;对\"学校生活环境\"、\"实践教学\"与\"就业服务\"评价较低。研究发现,学生评价结果与人才培养水平评估结果、与学校是否是示范性学校关系不密切,与教师、学校管理人员的评价也不同;加强对学生的学习与实践指导、密切校企合作、提高选修课程比例和创造更舒适的校园生活环境是改进高职院校服务质量的优先事项。