The student evaluation numeric survey sections of strongly agree to strongly disagree provide numeric averages for each metric. While these numeric values help identify areas of relative strength and weakness, they do not always provide insight into how to change a value. One can see that a value is lower than other values, but why that value is lower may not be clear. The comments on the evaluation can sometimes help provide information on why a value is stronger or weaker. Of most interest are areas of weakness so that those might be addressed.
The survey had comments for each of the three main sections: instructor, course, and course materials. The comments for each section were aggregated under general areas of concern. Although over 800 evaluations were submitted, many students chose not to make any comments. The most common comments were along the lines of "everything was good" or "none" as in "no comments." The broader picture is that in general students felt satisfied with their experience at the college. The following looks at the remaining more substantive comments, areas that present opportunities to improve.
In the section on comments for instructors students wanted to see instructors be more responsive and more quickly responsive. These comments included response times for messages and for marking assignments. This area tied with requests for more time to complete assignments.
Students also asked for more specific explanations, clearer explanations, and better communication of expectations. The students expressed a desire for more examples. There was also a desire expressed for more communication, more interaction between instructors and students.
The most common shared sentiment in terms of the courses was that a class should be residential, should be face-to-face. This echoes the
earlier finding that the college may want to rebalance the number of online versus residential courses. There are indications that the college should be offering more residential courses and fewer online courses.
The comments that are aggregated under "make use of modules" included explanations. Some instructors are only posting assignments to the Assignments area and tests to Quizzes area - these faculty are not using modules. As a result the students cannot "see both assignments and quizzes on the same page."
Some faculty are apparently not setting a due date and time for assignments, perhaps these are in class assignments, with the result being that the assignment does not populate the students To Do list on the home page. This apparently caused some students to miss turning in assignments on time. Even assignments done in class or on paper should have a due date and time in Canvas. This issue actually arose in the next section because the students thought the problem was a course materials problem, a bug in Canvas, but the problem is a course with assignments not having due dates set.
Students also prefer that assignments are posted on and are then due on weekdays.
In terms of course materials, students wanted to see more videos made available. Some students noted that their bookstore did not have a textbook.
The item "third party tool textbook, not helpful, hard to use,..." also included that the textbook was expensive. These comments were directed at a specific third party tool in use at the college which includes access to a textbook through that tool.
Students did not always well explain a comment, reading through the original comments there is a sense that the students want textbooks that are integrated directly into Canvas. This is, of course, not always possible, perhaps not often possible. Where this can be done, however, this reduces "friction" for the students in terms of access to support materials.
Again, for any one comment category the sample size is small. These comments do not rise to statistical significance. They only provide some starting places for improvement to occur.
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