During spring and fall 2020, St. Olaf participated in the Higher Education Data Sharing (HEDS) Consortium’s COVID-19 Institutional Response Student Survey. Below you can find the results from these surveys prepared by St. Olaf’s Institutional Effectiveness & Assessment (IE&A) Office.
IE&A provides support to faculty through assessment consultations, information on course evaluations, information on assessment of student learning, as well as providing data, reports, and research that strengthen teaching and learning and promote understanding of the nature and quality of education at St. Olaf. For more information on IE&A and the ways they can support your teaching, visit their website.
Fall 2020
Fall 2020 HEDS COVID-19 Survey Results Summary
Fall 2020 HEDS COVID-19 Full Survey Results
Spring 2020
Just after the close of spring term 2020, the college conducted a HEDS COVID-19 survey asking our students which remote instructional methods were most/least effective and why. Kelsey Thompson, Assistant Director of Assessment, and her summer intern Juliana Goldman analyzed the survey’s responses. Here are their key takeaways:
Students mentioned a wide variety of both synchronous and asynchronous teaching methods that they found effective.
- Specifically, a third of respondents mentioned effective methods from both of these categories.
- Students tended to prefer synchronous methods because of the contact with faculty (particularly for help understanding content) and other students and because they found these methods provided greater structure and engagement.
- Students tended to struggle with these methods primarily due to technology issues (e.g., poor WiFi) or scheduling constraints (e.g., time zone differences, balancing with other course scheduling demands, or new demands from their home life).
- Students tended to prefer asynchronous methods because they could complete the work on their own schedule and at their own pace, and because these methods were much less impacted by time zone or WiFi connection issues.
- Students tended to struggle with these methods when there was too much independent learning and little interaction with faculty.
- Specific methods more frequently mentioned as ineffective rather than effective were Moodle forums and timed online exams.
- Thus, what works best is not necessarily a particular method or set of methods, but rather those that are best suited to the course structure and the particular students in that course.
- This suggests that designing effective online learning experiences requires a balance between providing opportunities for students to achieve essential course learning outcomes and frequent check-ins with students about what is and isn’t working well.