Evaluating Teaching and Course Design Using Surveys

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Last revised on 8/13/25 by KK

Overview

This post provides recommendations for collecting formative and summative student survey feedback to inform and improve your teaching and course design.

Types of Surveys

Formative Student Surveys

Students are often asked to complete end-of-course evaluations that don’t personally impact their learning experience because the data is only used to improve subsequent course offerings. Consider using formative student surveys to inform and improve your in-progress teaching and make course improvements that impact current students. This type of survey is best administered two to four weeks into a fourteen week semester or approximately 20–25% into a course. It can be re-administered mid-semester, if needed; just be mindful of survey overload.

Summative Student Surveys

Summative course surveys can effectively inform and improve subsequent course offerings. The University administers the official online Student Experience of Teaching (SET) during the last 2–3 weeks of the course (prior to finals). Faculty may add questions to the SET.

Implementing Surveys

eCampus has initial and final course surveys that can be implemented in HuskyCT (Blackboard). Preview the eCampus Student Survey Questions.

Add the Surveys to HuskyCT

  1. Download the eCampus Student Surveys Course Package (zip), which includes both the initial and final course surveys.
  2. In your HuskyCT course, import the course package.
  3. Edit each Form to customize questions and configure settings.

Promote Response Rates

Often good response rates require faculty encouragement. Use the Announcements to request student completion. Refer to communication templates for a sample announcement.

Review Survey Results

Similar to other assessments, view form submissions from the item’s “Submissions” tab.

Note: Question Analysis features are not yet available in forms. Download all responses as a CSV file to review aggregate results.

Additional Resources

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