Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Wise, Jean-Marc
Author's Email Address	jwise@fsu.edu
URN	etd-06242011-112809
Title	The Effect Of Instructional Interventions On Undergraduate Students’ Responsiveness To Online Course Evaluations And The Quality Of Their Feedback
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy
Department	Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, Department of
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Vanessa Dennen Committee Chair John Keller Committee Member Robert Reiser Committee Member John Geringer University Representative
Keywords	Course Evaluations Student Evaluations of Teaching Student Feedback Quality of Feedback Response Rates
Date of Defense	2011-04-25
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract Online course evaluations offer a number of advantages over the traditional paper based surveys that are handed out at the end of the semester for students to provide feedback about the course and the instructor. However, low response rates to online course evaluations have kept the method from being widely adopted. Additionally, concerns about a perceived lack of quality of student feedback have led to resistance against course evaluations, especially when the results are used to make decisions about promotion and tenure. The present study aimed at addressing the issue of low response rates and low quality of feedback by means of targeted instructional interventions. The sixteen sections of a large enrollment (N = 484), lower division course at a southeastern public research I university were randomly assigned to three groups. One group received an intervention that highlighted the benefits of course evaluations and aimed at motivating students to participate in end-of-term online course evaluations. A second intervention aimed at teaching students how to provide effective feedback in online course evaluations. A third group that did not receive any intervention served as the control for the study. The results showed that the intervention aimed at increasing participation did not have the predicted effect. On the other hand, the intervention teaching students how to provide effective feedback yielded significantly higher comment rates. The quality of the comments as measured by the length of comments in words, whether or not the comments included examples from class, suggestions for improvement, or personal comments about the instructor, did not differ among groups. For future research it is suggested to vary instructor and course properties and use media based interventions for scalability.
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