Joel VannerStarting a Mid-Course Evaluation
Why are mid-course evaluations valuable?
Incorporating a mid-course evaluation is an effective and timely intervention that helps you hear from students about how the course is going (Sozer, Zeybekoglu & Kaya, 2019). Using this easy strategy, you could:
- Invite dialogue about the student learning experience
- Make a teaching change when you can act on it
- Help students reflect on their own learning in the course and practice metacognition
- Help students see how you value their feedback
- Receive better feedback on final course evaluations
What things do you hope to learn?
Starting considerations
Designing a mid-course evaluation involves consideration of what information you hope to gather. This could include student satisfaction, confidence with concepts, effectiveness of teaching methods and more.
Here are some question categories to consider (use the carrot to expand each category):
Developing questions
When developing questions, you could focus on areas of the course that you are particularly interested in assessing such as pacing, clarity of materials, or levels of engagement. Then, there are different methods to consider such as focus groups or surveys. Surveys facilitate both closed and open question types, allowing for a mix of quantitative and qualitative feedback. In addition, feel free to consult Microsoft Copilot for question ideas.
Example open-ended questions (short answer)
- What is something you would definitely recommend changing in this class?
- What is something you would definitely want to keep in this class?
- Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience in this class?
Example closed-ended questions (Likert)
Using Likert scales in your evaluation allows you to quantify insights.
The instructor effectively supports my learning in the course. o Strongly agree o Agree o Neither agree nor disagree o Disagree o Strongly disagree
The small group activities are useful for my learning in this class. o Strongly agree o Agree o Neither agree nor disagree o Disagree o Strongly disagree
Mid-Course Evaluation Tools
Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms can be effectively used for mid-course evaluations by enabling you to create custom surveys that collect students' feedback. You can easily share these forms with students via email or through embedding in Blackboard, and then analyze the responses to identify areas for improvement, ensuring the course meets the needs and expectations of all students.
If presented with a “Sign In” box, enter your Quinnipiac e-mail in username@quinnipiac.edu format. Microsoft Forms is included in the Office 365 suite provided by the University.
Published form example
To spark creative juices, here’s an example of a published form for a FYS 101 course.
Forms templates for mid-course evaluations
Our team has created a handful of form templates you can duplicate and use for your courses. After opening the template link, select “Duplicate it” at the top of the page, make any necessary edits, and then share with your students.
9 questions
13 questions
4 questions
3 questions
Create your own mid-course evaluations in Forms
If you prefer to build your own form, Microsoft has a Forms Quick Start guide that walks you through sign-in, form creation, sharing, and results viewing.
Pencil (or pen) and paper
Depending on the course learning needs, using pencil or pen and paper could be a convenient method to collect feedback from your students. Consider building 5 or 10 minutes in to the start or end of a class, providing students with dedicated time to collect their thoughts and write them down. For example, having students reflect on the goals of a course project.
Acting on student responses
What might I do with mid-course evaluation feedback?
Once you’ve determined how and what to collect, it is important to process and reflect on your students’ responses. You may want to consider the following approaches:
Analyze the feedback
For closed-ended questions, use statistical analysis to quantify insights; Microsoft Forms is helpful in this area, creating graphs and maps. Analyze open-ended questions for common themes and suggestions. Although you shouldn’t ignore outlier comments, focus on general trends.
Payette and Brown (2018) suggest sorting the data into a few different buckets:
- small changes to make immediately or in the coming weeks;
- more substantive changes to shift to a future semester; and
- changes that can’t be implemented because they conflict with a learning goal.
Communicate back to students
Sharing what you learned and how you plan to address it is an important part of the feedback process because it shows students that you are committed to their learning. Focus on themes; it is not necessary to address every comment. You could begin by thanking students for their input followed by a quick presentation and/or larger conversation. Either way, share the data in a way that feels comfortable and fosters the classroom culture you are striving for.
References
Payette, P. R. & Brown, M. K. (2018) Gathering mid-semester feedback: Three variations to improve instruction. IDEA Paper #67. IDEA Center, Inc. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED588349
Sozer, E. M., Zeybekoglu, Z., & Kaya, M. (2019). Using mid-semester course evaluation as a feedback tool for improving learning and teaching in higher education. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(7), 1003-1016. Retrieved from https://go.exlibris.link/CMSNJjqt
Bates College. (2016). Examples of Classroom Assessment Techniques. Retrieved from https://www.bates.edu/research/files/2016/08/assessments_examples.pdf
