Feedback is ever-present in many aspects of our lives. We get feedback on our job performance. We get asked for our feedback from almost every business we interact with. Have you bought a new car? You get asked for your feedback from the dealership, the manufacturer, and others who were involved in that process. Did you buy stamps at the post office? They often circle a link to a feedback form at the bottom of your receipt and encourage you to share more about your experience. 

Typically in education when we talk about feedback, we are focused on the feedback provided to students on their assignments and performance in the class. But we can also leverage feedback from students to benefit students and instructors by using their insights to drive course improvements and teaching. Asking for feedback is beneficial to instructors because it can be used to drive the improvement of course design and teaching. Collecting feedback from students can allow the instructor to make immediate changes in the course delivery or to gather feedback to be used later in redesigning the course. 

While the instructor can make good use of student feedback, there are benefits for students as well when they are provided the opportunity to give feedback. One benefit is that by collecting feedback there is an increase in student engagement and motivation. When given a sense that their input is valued, the students feel that the instructor cares about them and their specific needs. Collecting student feedback supports students’ well-being as well because they have a sense that the instructor sees them as more than a name on the roster. Depending on the type of questions, gathering feedback from the students promotes student metacognition (by getting the students to think about their learning and evaluating their learning). Gathering feedback has many benefits, which is why we are sharing several ways to gather feedback.

As we continue our discussion of feedback, we will consider how to be transparent with students about why you are collecting feedback and provide several examples of ways to collect feedback from students.

A Key Point to Keep in Mind in Collecting Feedback from Students

Before we talk about specific ways to incorporate collecting feedback in online courses, there is one final key point we suggest that you keep in mind. If you collect feedback from students, you should be upfront in sharing with the students if or when they might see changes based on their feedback. If there is a plan for the instructor to make immediate changes in the delivery of the course to benefit students, then that should be conveyed to the students. If the feedback is being collected to make changes to the course in a future semester, then that should be conveyed to the students. By sharing when the feedback will be used, it ensures that students understand how their feedback is going to be used. Otherwise, if students provide feedback and do not see changes but had an expectation that they would, trust may be broken between the instructor and student.

Examples of How to Collect Feedback

We have several examples of how you can collect feedback in online courses. We do not necessarily think that all of these types should be used in every course. We suggest that you choose the feedback that will be most useful to you and your goals in collecting feedback from students. Many of these techniques can also be used in face-to-face courses.

 

Example 1: First Week Survey of Students

What is it? A form to gather additional information about students in the class

Why use it?  The first week survey can provide valuable information to you about your students that is otherwise hard to know or learn about them. It provides students with an opportunity to share important information about themselves and their learning that may not be shared via a discussion board or ice breaker.

Things to Keep in Mind: This feedback is more of a proactive approach because it allows you to have information to make informed instructional decisions before students submit their first assignment. We encourage you to think about what questions you’d like to ask and how that information will be used to make instructional decisions. You could ask questions about their other obligations, like if they have a job and how many hours a week they are working. You could ask what time zone they are living in to help determine groups for future group work in the course. If you are seeking just general trends, you might decide to not collect students’ names as part of the survey. If you would like to later reference the information, potentially before a student meeting, then you can collect their names. There are many useful examples of first week surveys available. We’ve linked to a few example surveys below.

• Who’s in class? Form from book titled “What Inclusive Instructors Do”
• Indiana University – Survey Your Students
• Northwestern – Pre-Course Survey or Questionnaire

 

 Example 2: Q&A Discussion Board

What is it? A discussion board for students to post general questions that is available throughout the semester.

Why use it? The Q&A discussion board can be a place to gather all of the student questions received throughout the semester to be reviewed for patterns to inform future revisions of the course. An added benefit of the board is that by directing students to post questions to the board, then there are potentially fewer emailed questions because students with similar questions can see responses already asked by their peers.

Things to Keep in Mind: You should include information about how to use this board in the course syllabus or orientation module. Because the Q&A discussion board is not a typical required assignment, some students may not notice that it is available in the course. You may need to model to students how to use the board. A way to do that is to take a question received from a student via email that could be posted to the board and post it there yourself. You can remove the student name from the post, but include a statement like, “A student in the class asked the following question that I thought would be beneficial to the whole group, so I am posting it here with my response. Feel free to ask additional questions.”

 

Example 3: Muddiest Point Surveys

What is it? A muddiest point survey includes a few questions to evaluate student perceptions of the module or lesson.

Why use it? The muddiest point surveys can be included at the end of each module and used to determine areas that are unclear or topics that may need future revision. If a course has 10 modules and uses 10 muddiest point surveys, the instructor can look back at the 10 surveys to see which modules had the lowest scores on the questions. Seeing the low scores would then signal to the instructor that those modules would be good to focus on for revision.

Things to Keep in Mind: There are a variety of questions that could be asked, but we encourage you to use only a couple of questions and repeat the same questions for each survey throughout the course. Questions that we include in our typical muddiest point survey include the following:

• The materials and examples in the module were useful to me. (Use a likert-scale or rating.)
• The information was presented in a clear and organized manner. (Use a likert-scale or rating.)
• The assignments were helpful to my learning. (Use a likert-scale or rating.)
• Open ended: What would have been helpful to your learning in this module?

 

Example 4: Mid-Term Evaluation

What is it? A short questionnaire asking students to share what is working or not working well for them in the course so far.

Why use it? This type of feedback can be helpful in making changes to instructional strategies and delivery of the course as the course is being taught. This type of feedback can also help encourage students to reflect on their learning and promote metacognition.

Things to Keep in Mind: This method of collecting feedback is an example where it is important to communicate to students whether changes may be seen as a result of their responses. A technique we’ve seen used is that instructors will aggregate the trends in student responses and send an announcement acknowledging three things: 

1. that the instructor has read the students’ feedback;
2. what changes they plan to make, and
3. what changes may have been mentioned by students but that cannot be made (and why).

Some instructors do use the mid-term evaluation to make immediate changes and others hold onto the feedback to inform future revisions. 

An example of how to frame the mid-term evaluation is to use the “start-stop-continue” format. To use the model, simply request students to share their feedback in three parts.

• Stop: Things that are less good and which they would like to be stopped,
• Start: Things which aren’t currently being done but which it would be helpful to start doing.
• Continue: Things that are good and should be continued.

 

Example 5: End of Course Feedback Survey

What is it? A short questionnaire asking students to reflect on the course and their learning.

Why use it? This feedback example has similarities to the mid-term evaluation because it can be used for future revisions of the course. It can also be helpful in encouraging students to reflect on their learning and promote metacognition.

Things to Keep in Mind: The benefit of creating your own End of Course Feedback Survey is it allows you to customize questions that you’d like to ask that are not necessarily possible with the SRTEs. Let’s say you use groups in the course and you want to know more about student perceptions of that experience.  The end of course feedback survey can allow you to do that in a way that the SRTEs do not. Another question you could include is, “The one thing I wish I had known before I took this course is…” Share with students that these responses will be shared with students next semester as a way to help them feel prepared for the course. One final item for consideration is to consider allowing the students to be anonymous so that they feel more open to sharing.

Conclusion 

There are many ways to collect student feedback, but we do want to encourage you to be thoughtful and intentional about how you go about it. We have presented five examples of how you can collect student feedback. The hope is that the feedback they provide can either influence decisions about the delivery of the course as it is being taught or influence revision of the course for the future. The benefits of collecting feedback are not limited to the course itself. Students can also benefit because feedback can promote their motivation and metacognition. It may seem like an added task on an already busy to-do list, but collecting feedback from students can be a powerful strategy to improve teaching.