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
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Three things you like about the course
Expected letter grade so far
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Ratings of various aspects of the course
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prefer not to say response
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
I’m happy to share
Three suggestions for improving lab
my Qualtrics survey;
request via email to
heather.urry@tufts.edu
Invitation by Email
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“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?
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Conducting the midterm eval online versus on paper has
three key benefits:
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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…
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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
 Labs are too long and
meet too early (9am!)
Me
The Course
excellent
poor
excellent
poor
I need a clone…
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“faster pace”
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“a little bit more time per
slide.”
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“more examples”
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“maybe less time on examples,
can be a little redundant”
More Participation
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“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
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“have small group / partner discussions more often to
engage the students / apply knowledge”
“More group activities”
“more class involvement”
More …
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“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
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“Slides posted more regularly”
“Speak louder please...sometimes you get quiet! :)”
“Stop using spss (IBM sucks) instead use r or excel
packages”