Gathering faculty teaching evaluations by in‐class and online surveys: their effects on response rates and evaluations

Abstract

This study compares student evaluations of faculty teaching that were completed in‐class with those collected online. The two methods of evaluation were compared on response rates and on evaluation scores. In addition, this study investigates whether treatments or incentives can affect the response to online evaluations. It was found that the response rate to the online survey was generally lower than that to the in‐class survey. When a grade incentive was used to encourage response to the online survey, a response rate was achieved that was comparable with that to the in‐class survey. Additionally, the study found that online evaluations do not produce significantly different mean evaluation scores than traditional in‐class evaluations, even when different incentives are offered to students who are asked to complete online evaluations.

Notes

* Corresponding author: Department of Marketing, College of Business Administration and Economics, California State University, Northridge, CA 91330‐8337, USA. Email: [email protected]