Using Qualtrics for Midterm Course Evaluations Heather Urry Psychology

What teaching/learning problem was I trying to address?

How did I go about using technology to address that problem?

Midterm Course Evaluation Items Three things you like about the course Expected letter grade so far prefer not to say response Ratings of various aspects of the course examples: personal and peer’s level of participation, content, pace, prof’s knowledge of material Rating of prof, TA, and overall course Three suggestions for improving lecture Three suggestions for improving lab I’m happy to share my Qualtrics survey; request via to

Invitation by “We on the PSY 32 teaching team are looking for feedback about PSY 32 so that we can feel good about what's going well and take steps to address as best we can the things that are not. Will you please complete the midterm course evaluation at the following link?” ${l://SurveyURL} The survey is set to anonymize responses so none of us on the teaching team will be able to link your responses to you (unless you write something that gives you away, of course!). I ask that you complete this before Spring Break, this by this Fri, Mar 15. Thanks!”

What lessons have been learned? Conducting the midterm eval online versus on paper has three key benefits: obtain feedback from all students (not just those who happen attend on evaluation day) maintain anonymity (no handwriting) easily summarize findings (aggregating numeric data, copying/pasting exemplars) Qualtrics is an easy-to-use, free-to-us survey tool. Students… appreciate the opportunity to be heard in time for it to make a difference. enjoy seeing a summary of the midterm course evaluation feedback….

Midterm Course Eval Results The Good: Lectures generally clear Class is organized Slides and exam review sheet helpful We try to make it interesting The Bad: Slides not available before lecture Dry subject matter The Ugly: Grading seems harsh Grading seems harsh Labs are too long and meet too early (9am!) Labs are too long and meet too early (9am!)

Me The Course excellent poor

I need a clone… “faster pace” “more examples” “a little bit more time per slide.” “maybe less time on examples, can be a little redundant”

More Participation “Get more class participation somehow. I hate the awkward silences.” “I would feel more comfortable participating if other people participated more; not sure that you really have any power over this. I think it's more the students.” “Participation could be more encouraged. Rather than waiting for someone to raise their hand, Prof. Urry should call on people so that more students pay attention.”

More Interaction “have small group / partner discussions more often to engage the students / apply knowledge” “More group activities” “more class involvement”

More … “Give out more candy” “More Candy” “more candy!” “more candy experiments” “I'm really sad that there wont be anymore candy studies, it's ok I'll still come to class though.” “For the candy experiments, exchange the butterfingers for milky ways.”

Miscellaneous “Slides posted more regularly” “Speak louder please...sometimes you get quiet! :)” “Stop using spss (IBM sucks) instead use r or excel packages”