Yihong Qiu, Lijuan Wang
Student rating of teaching is popular in colleges and universities. From the administrative perspective, the aim of student rating is to help instructors improve teaching. However, due to the fact that rating is a kind of summative evaluation and usually has time lag, instructors often believe that ratings do not help to improve teaching, and they are indifferent or even disgusted with student rating. Although instructors do not recognize the value of student rating, they acknowledge that students’ feedback based on learning experience can contribute to improving teaching. Researchers have found that instructors acting upon midterm course evaluation, especially with the help of professional consultants, can actually improve the quality of teaching, because midterm course evaluation is a formative evaluation, which is essentially with “diagnosis” characteristics and a good timeliness.
Our center has provided midterm course evaluation, which is originated from small group instructional diagnostic, to instructors for 6 years. Survey from the instructors who received this service showed that 98.7% of them recognized the value of the service. But whether this service has any impact on students is unknown. Thus, in study, we have two research questions: 1. what are the students’ perception of the service? 2. whether the service impacts the students’ learning? We designed a questionnaire which consisted of 16 items on a five point Likert scale and one open question, and delivered to students of 15 courses at the end of the spring and fall semesters in 2017. In total, 391 anonymous responses were collected. 93.1 % of students regarded that the process of midterm course evaluation was efficient. 91.6 % of students perceived some changes in teaching made by their instructors. 89.7% students thought the midterm course evaluation had positive influence on learning environment, and 88.2% students believed that it increased their motivation in learning, but only 51.7 % students reported that they had more engagement with the course. In conclusion, midterm course evaluation has positive impact on students.
