Tips for Increasing Student Response Rates

Course evaluations provide an essential avenue for students to share their perspectives on their learning experiences and provide feedback on various aspects of the course, such as the curriculum, instruction, assessments, and overall course design so you as the instructor can identify where you are excelling and where you can continue to grow. This feedback can help instructors make informed decisions about their teaching practices, instructional materials, and assessment methods.

*Note - Although students will receive automated reminders to complete their course evaluations, it is important you as the instructor also emphasize the significance of their feedback.

Navigate this resource

How to Access Your Course Eval Dashboard

You can check your course information and response rates through MyASU Home Page > Teaching & Student Support Tools > Course Evaluations or by directly visiting www.asu.edu/evaluate.

Strategies for increasing student response rates

To ensure meaningful and constructive feedback from our students, consider the following strategies to increase student response rates to the course evaluation surveys:
 

• Emphasize the significance of student evaluations. By highlighting how evaluations help instructors improve their courses and instructional techniques, you can better ensure students are able to connect how the feedback provided will be utilized to enhance the learning experience for future students. 
  Consider sharing tips on writing constructive and respectful feedback as well as examples of feedback statements.
• Express genuine interest in their input. By conveying your interest in their feedback, you let your students know that their input is highly valuable and that their voices matter in shaping the quality of the courses. 
  Consider sharing specific examples of how you changed your teaching based on the feedback.
• Make it easy to access their evaluation. Try sharing the link to the surveys (www.asu.edu/evaluate) through multiple channels, including emails, Canvas announcements, and in-class reminders to make the link easier for students to access and complete the evaluations. 
  Consider sending students frequent reminders while thanking those who already responded. TLC has created several Course Evaluation reminder message templates to help you get started.
• Incentivize participation. The University Office of Evaluation and Educational Effectiveness encourages instructors to utilize collective incentives as motivators for students to complete course evaluations, while discouraging individual incentives that require students to show proof or give the impression instructors can track individual students. 
  Consider offering an incentive to students for completing the evaluations, such as a small amount of extra credit points when your response rate reaches 85% of the class (viewable in the evaluation dashboard). Encourage friendly competitions among sections in multisection classes. 

• Allow dedicated time during class for students to complete the evaluations. For immersion courses, consider making it an opening activity in the beginning of class and set aside 5-10 minutes so students can complete their evaluations. 
  TLC has prepared a  Course Eval Reminder Slide that you can easily add to your lecture. For Online classes, consider embedding the evaluation as part of a learning activity in one of the final modules of the course.

   

Email/Announcement Templates

To make drafting reminder emails and announcements easier, TLC has created the following message templates, which you can modify and adjust according to your needs.

• Template 1
• Template 2
• Template 3

Template 1

Hello class,

I would like to send many thanks for the __% of you who already completed their evaluations of the course and instructors. I also want to remind the rest of you that you can still contribute to improving the course by going to www.asu.edu/evaluate to complete the survey by ______.

Sincerely,

Prof. YourName

Template 2

Hello class,

As the end of term approaches, I’d like to remind you to share your feedback and complete the course evaluations of your classes (www.asu.edu/evaluate).

Student evaluations of teaching provide valuable information for me on how I can improve my courses and teaching. Your opinions also influence the review of me as an instructor that takes place every year.

I encourage you to complete all of the multiple-choice items as honestly as possible. Take your time and consider the content of the question rather than just uniformly responding with all 5s or 1s. The open-ended response items are a place for you to provide detailed responses related to your classroom and learning experiences.

Course evaluations are completely anonymous and I will not be able to view them until after grades are posted and the class has concluded. I look forward to reading your feedback.

Sincerely,

Prof. YourName

Template 3

Hello class,

It’s that time of year again! Click here to enter evaluations for all your ASU Courses: www.asu.edu/evaluate.

What is the purpose of a Course Evaluation?
As students, you are experts on what you experienced in a course, and your voice is important for providing feedback. Your anonymous feedback provides:
a mechanism for instructors and TAs to understand what is working well in their courses and teaching and how they might improve. 
supporting evidence that can be considered in the annual evaluation of the instructor by their department.

Tips for providing meaningful feedback.
Open-ended responses that are not related to your learning can diminish the value of your feedback. Specific, constructive responses that focus on your experiences are far more useful than general critiques. 
Telling your instructors which aspects of the class worked well can be just as important as telling them what didn’t go well. Try to include examples of both in your feedback.
If your course has a separate lab/discussion section led by a graduate TA you will receive two evaluation links, one for lecture and the other for lab. Make sure you provide feedback in the appropriate survey.

Course evaluations are completely anonymous and I will not be able to view them until after grades are posted and the class has concluded. I look forward to reading your feedback.

Sincerely,

Prof. Your Name

How to Provide Helpful Feedback to Your Instructors

Constructive feedback from students is a valuable resource for improving teaching. The feedback should be specific, focused, and respectful. It should also address aspects of the course and teaching that are positive as well as those that need improvement.

Keep the following in mind when writing your comments on course evaluations:
1. Be respectful. Comments that are not related to your learning diminish the value of your feedback. Derogatory comments or criticisms based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. are not appropriate.

2. Be specific and provide examples when commenting on the course or the instructor. Specific constructive suggestions that focus on your learning are far more useful than general critiques. See below for examples of ways you can provide feedback that helps instructors understand how their instructional choices facilitated or hindered your learning.

3. Focus on observable behaviors of the instructor or on specific aspects of the course. Describe the situation you are commenting on and try to speak only on your experiences, not those of other students. Your feedback can valuably influence the ways they teach this course and others in the future.
 

Examples of constructive feedback