Course Evaluations

 

T&E now offers standardized course evaluations. Follow this link for more information: Standardized Course Evaluations

 

Processing of individual course evaluation questionnaires as well as those questionnaires used for other instructional purposes is provided at no charge. Departmental evaluations and any other questionnaires involving large numbers of separate sections may require a week or more to process. Also, at the end of the semester, all examinations are processed before any course evaluation processing is completed. There will be a nominal charge for processing of questionnaires not used for evaluation of instruction.

 

The following services are provided at no charge for processing of instructional evaluation questionnaires:

 

Answer Sheets

Machine-readable answer sheets providing either 5-choices (up to 240 items) or 10-choices (up to 160 items) per question can be obtained from T&E. A third answer sheet is also available which permits overprinting of questions on the sheet. (This sheet is also available at no charge. However, preparing overprint copy requires special expertise and, therefore, needs to be done by T&E. Actual printing of the copy onto the answer sheet is also required and is not supplied by T&E.)

Data Quality

The instructor is responsible for ensuring that students properly fill out their questionnaires. T&E staff will only correct those errors which prevent an answer sheet from being read by the scanner. Other errors such as multiple marks for a single question will not be corrected. Once sheets have been read by the scanner all extraneous marks will be considered invalid for purposes of analysis of the data.

Weighting

Weighting of response categories for each item is possible.

 

Unweighted Items

It is not necessary to give weights to all items. However, it is not possible to determine averages for unweighted items.

 

Special Codes and ID Columns

If ID numbers are not needed on the questionnaire, the ID columns of the answer sheet in addition to the special codes fields may be used as additional spaces for answers to questions.

 

Subscales

Items may be included on any or all of the 20 available subscales plus the total questionnaire score. It is not necessary to assign every item to a subscale, but if the item is to be a part of a total score, it will need to be assigned to a subscale. The total score for the questionnaire is formed by summing each of the scale scores. Items allocated to more than one subscale will be represented more than once in the total score.

 

Frequency Analysis

A frequency analysis is provided for each item, whether weighted or unweighted. The frequency analysis includes the following:

• The number and percentage of persons responding in each available response category for each item, identification field, or special code column.

• The number and percentage of persons who omitted the item or made multiple or otherwise unresolved marks to the question.

• The breakdowns of the total set of answer sheets may be controlled by special "section divider sheets," which can be obtained from T&E, as well as by data entered into the identification and special codes fields. For example, it is possible to have the data analyzed by course or section of a course as well as by instructor (or teaching assistant) across courses. Departments must prepare their divider sheets following T&E guidelines.

Summary Statistics

The mean, standard deviation, total valid and total invalid responses are given for each weighted item, including items answered in identification and special codes fields. For each subscale, the following statistics are given: proportion of persons responding to all items on the scale; mean score on the subscale; standard deviation of the subscale; reliability (internal consistency) of the subscale; standard error of measurement of the subscale.

 

Copy of Data

Instructors may request a copy on 3.5 inch diskette (IBM PC or compatible), a CD or disk file sent to an e-mail address. If the diskette is not supplied by the user, T&E will provide one at a nominal charge. Record layout information for the file is also provided upon request.

 

Customized Questionnaire Processing Services

Nominal fees will be charged for these services, depending upon the processing requested. Characteristics of customized jobs in this category might include the following:

Data Clean Up

Special user-defined edits or special checking routines before processing the data.

Special Weighting

Use of non-integer weights for response categories.