eSET: Combined Versus
Uncombined Reports
Stefani Dawn, PhD
Assistant Director of Assessment
Academic Programs, Assessment and
Accreditation
MINIMUM CLASS SIZE FOR
EVALUATIONS
If Oregon State University solicits or accepts student survey
evaluations of the classroom or laboratory performance of a
faculty member, the survey evaluations shall be conducted
anonymously… (OAR 576-003-0070)
Interim Decision
• Courses with fewer than 6 students will not be
evaluated.
• Vote to occur in November faculty Senate
meeting
REPORTING: COMBINED OR
UNCOMBINED
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Combining reports preserves student responses
• Example: 2 section slash course – one has 5 students,
one has 4 students – combining would allow the
faculty members to receive the evaluations.
• The numbers: Fall 2011, Winter 2012, Spring 2012
# Cross Listed
Courses
# Sections <6
Students
Number
Students
Excluded
3987
1766
3031
400/500 Level
# Students
Courses
Excluded from
400/500
400
500
216
616
1622
REPORTING: COMBINED OR
UNCOMBINED
• Some faculty and departments prefer the combined data others do
not
• Differences in P & T forms/data per department
• Graduate versus undergraduate
• Having separate reports and combining data after the fact is not
feasible
• Median calculation is not a standard approach and cannot be
done easily in an Excel spreadsheet by the department or
individual instructor
• The Office of APAA does not have the resources to combine
reports that have been separated
Graduate Course eSET Questions
• If reports are combined:
– All graduate sections of 400/500 courses
could have additional questions that can
be automatically added for consistency
• Allows us to place disclosure language
– Would not interfere with ability to have
instructor-added questions
Graduate Course eSET Questions
– These questions would be preceded by a
disclosure statement such as:
The following questions provide additional information
about the course objectives. In some instances,
responses to these questions may make it easier to infer
a particular participant’s identity, depending on the
number of graduate students in the course. Accordingly,
while OSU would like to receive this information, OSU
emphasizes responding to the following questions is
voluntary.
Graduate Course eSET Questions
• The course content met my needs as a graduate
student.
• The course expectations were appropriate for graduate
students.
• The assessments were at a graduate level.
• The assessments matched the course outcomes.
• I believe I attained the graduate-level outcomes for this
course.
These would use the existing likert scale: very poor, poor,
fair, good, very good, excellent, unable to rate
eSET Timing Pilot
– Three options for closing eSET
1. Before finals
2. After finals, before grades are released
3. At the end of grading week with grades
hidden until evaluations are complete
(incentive for completion)
– Have two terms of data for option 3, one
term of data for option 2
eSET Timing Pilot
• Preliminary data show a statistically
significant change in response rate (67% to
58%) (p=0.0001)
• Would like to obtain another term of data for
option 2 (before grading week, after finals)
eSET Timing Pilot
– Up to two terms of data for closing before
finals
– Data
• Response rates
• Scoring trends
– Data presented to FS in 2013 to inform
vote on timing