EVALUATION OF COURSE EVALUATIONS'

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EVALUATION OF COURSE EVALUATIONS.
by Prof. Peter Friis-Hansen, Assoc. Prof. Niels
Houbak and Prof. Peder Klit Department for
Mechanical Engineering (MEK), Technical
University of Denmark (DTU) DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby,
Denmark.
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Evaluation of courses ?
When is a course a good course?

• When the lecturer senses the success.
• When most students pass the exam
• When the students are happy
• When the industry are pleased with the candidates
• When the students have learned enough to .
• continue

How do we measure it? (the engineering approach)

• Attendance
• Percentage passing the course exam
• Grade average
• Student satisfaction
• Lecturer satisfaction
• Something else?

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Final Evaluation Questionnaire

• 3 sections. A The course, B The lecturers, C
  Written comments
• Has been used for more than 15 years, the last 3
  years in electronic form.
• Must be completed one week before end of term
  (discussed at the last lecture)
• Is important for the lecturer and for the
  department management (study board)
• Information is included in overall evaluations of
  staffs and studies

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The Questionnaire.
Section A

• 1. Are the prescribed course prerequisites
  adequate?
• 2. How is the course material?
• 3. Is the form of the course adequate?
• 4. A standard course has an average workload of 9
  hours pr week how much time did you spend?
• 5. How many lectures did you attend?
• 6. What is your general satisfaction with the
  course?
• 7. For courses taught in English did this
  influence your outcome?

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The Questionnaire.
Section B

• How did the (named) lecturer present the subject?
• Is the lecturer inspiring?
• How did you experience the dialog/cooperation
  with the lecturer?
• How is the lecturer as supervisor?
• 5. For group works did you receive criticism for
  handed in exercises during the course?

Section C

• I appreciate
• I criticize
• I suggest

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Answers and Weights Section A.
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Answers and Weights Section B.
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Post processing.

• For each question an average value is calculated
• Questions are weighed against one another
• Average values are multiplied with weights and
  summed
• A course/lecturer utility number is the outcome
• This is a subjective one number 0-10 evaluation
  far from any truth!
• BUT it may contain some information.

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Cumulative Curves.
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Time Evolution Fall term course curves.
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Time Evolution Fall term lecturer curves.
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Evaluation action.
Reactions from the study board

• Letters to excellent performing lecturers
• Letters to poor performing lecturers filtered
  for good excuses. Important to notice, that the
  tone is What do think you can do about this
  situation? Can we be of any help?
• Easy to locate/spot changes in behaviour
  (monitoring 50 courses is hard)

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Conclusions

• It is always worthwhile to evaluate what you are
  doing.
• Evaluations can sometimes be used for something
  differently.
• The anonymous comparison allows for lecturers to
  see his/her own performance relative to other
  staff members.
• All lecturers notice that their evaluation result
  has been processed. It is not only the poor
  performers that are noticed.
• The weighing factors indicate what is important
  when improving the teaching quality.
• The defined Utility-system generates a dynamic
  normal, i.e. conscientious staff will try to
  improve the teaching quality to obtain a good
  position on the cumulative curves.
• 7. Tests have shown that radical changes to the
  weights are needed to form a noticeable change in
  the ranking

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