Course feedback surveys at St. Olaf College are formative in nature, designed to foster improvements in teaching and learning. Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment (IE&A) staff are available to provide advice on developing, administering, and summarizing course feedback surveys.
Purpose
The principal purpose of the course feedback system at St. Olaf is to improve course content and instructional practice in ways that enhance student learning. All faculty members are strongly encouraged to administer end-of-course course student feedback surveys on a regular basis to promote their continued development as teachers and mentors. All Post-Tenure, Term, and Teaching Specialist faculty members must administer course feedback surveys in two classes (pro-rated for partial teaching loads) of their choice each academic year as part of the College’s faculty review process (see Faculty Personnel Policies and Procedures sections of the Faculty Manual, 4.III.G.7, 4.VI.C.1.a., and 4.VI.C.2.a.). Whether for review or for the instructor’s independent use, course feedback surveys are selected and administered by instructors and are intended for the instructor’s professional development.
Content
Instructors may use any questionnaire they wish in gathering student feedback on the effectiveness of course content and instruction, although some departments do have forms that are expected to be used. The College does not require the use of a standardized form. Instructors are encouraged to develop, adapt, or borrow questionnaires that address their principal concerns about course content or instruction, and that will help them sustain and strengthen student learning. All course feedback questionnaires should include instructions that explain the purposes and confidential nature of the course feedback process, as well as a statement regarding implicit bias (see suggested text in the form template).
Administration
Instructors may administer course feedback surveys on paper or electronically, via Google Forms (available as a template; see St. Olaf College Course Feedback Survey template). Whatever the questionnaire or the method of administration, it is essential to ensure that student participation is voluntary, that individual responses cannot be linked to specific students, and that responses will have no impact on students’ grades, their relationship with the instructor, or their relationship with the College. The above links include specific suggestions for ensuring voluntary and anonymous participation in the administration of both paper and electronic forms.
Results
Results from course feedback surveys are provided only to the instructor and may be shared with others (including department chairs). Please note that IE&A does not summarize data from individual course feedback surveys or aggregate data across instructors, courses or semesters. If you use online forms, remember to download and save your results. The creator of the form will only be able to access results as long as they have a valid St. Olaf username. You can download or print results from Google Forms, or save to a Google Sheet, but if the creator of the form leaves the college, the results will be lost from the system; they cannot be retrieved by IE&A staff or anyone else.
Course feedback in relation to faculty reviews
Course feedback survey results are not included in dossiers for pre-tenure, tenure, or promotion reviews. Instead, student reviews of teaching are solicited in a separate process overseen by Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment staff, using forms keyed directly to the Standards for Faculty Evaluation in the St. Olaf Faculty Manual. While course feedback survey results themselves are not included in dossiers, there is still a specific role that course feedback can play in these reviews. For example, a faculty member’s use of course feedback results for instructional improvement is specifically cited as evidence of his or her continued development as an instructor, one of the five criteria for evaluating a faculty member’s contributions to student learning and development cited in the Faculty Manual.
Course feedback results are included in the post-tenure review process. As noted above, tenured faculty members must administer course feedback surveys in two or more classes of their choice each academic year and share the results with the department chair. The accumulated results will inform the faculty member’s professional development plan and the professional development discussion between the faculty member, his or her department chair(s), and his or her associate dean(s) in the fourth year after the faculty member’s sabbatical.
In addition, sharing course feedback results is required annually for Term and Teaching Specialist faculty. Student feedback is also typically used as part of a department’s initial application to appoint an individual as a Teaching Specialist.