Evolving the student course evaluation process for greater insights

Higher education institutions seek to measure course quality, instructional quality, and learning outcomes. So why does the student course evaluation process rarely include measurement of outcomes, and typically limit its focus to student ratings of the course and instructor? With more than 20 years working with higher ed institutions, Kevin Hoffman, president of EvaluationKIT by Watermark, has collaborated with educators to maximize the insights that institutions gain from the course evaluation process. He sat down with us recently to share his observations The way student course evaluations are conducted is a defining factor in what institutions can capture. The process took its first leap forward with optical mark recognition technology (OMR), which gave rise to the “fill in the bubble” sheets used to collect student feedback since the 1970s. OMR made it easier to get feedback from every student in every course, but it required a “one size fits all” set of questions, usually created by university administration. It was difficult for instructors to ask their own course-specific questions, so instructors, departments, and programs created their own surveys if they wanted more specific student feedback.