The Course Experience Questionnaire: Altering question format and phrasing could improve the CEQ's effectiveness

Two studies considered whether the Course Experience Questionnaire's (CEQ) question format was the most appropriate for the CEQ's purpose. In the first, comparisons were made against two alternative but minimalist variations on the standard format. None of three tests showed the standard format to be superior. In the second, students reported the thinking used in deciding their responses on a sample of specific CEQ questions. Those reports uniformly showed responses to be decided by the recall of particular, concrete and personal experiences prompted by a question, and not by the overviewing implicitly assumed by the standard format. The implications drawn are that the systematic trialing of alternative question forms could well result in improved performance of the CEQ as an instrument, and that those alternative forms should probably be constrained to those directly prompting the recall of personal experience, but in more guided fashion than seems presently to occur.