Creating educational courses that students find interesting and engaging can be a challenging task for teachers. Moreover, they should also be useful in teaching them the required skills. These courses should also consider the fact each student is different and so everyone takes their own time to learn and grasp the subject.
The classroom response system allowed students to answer multiple-choice questions and engage in real-time discussions instantly.
But how do you ensure that the students are ‘learning’? The next step is knowing how well they are learning. Did the course cover all the essential topics? Did the homework help students in understanding the subject well? Do students like your teaching style, or can there be a different way to teach them better?
Two-way communication is the only way out. In this case, students need to give their feedback to the teachers. But, what if students don’t go to the teachers and tell them how they feel about the courses, teaching method, homework and more. What if they have concerns, but they don’t voice them. Hence, they need to be asked for their opinion and preferences.
You can collect student feedback for course evaluation using an online course evaluation survey.
Course evaluation surveys must bring out the most honest responses. Respondents are limited to only choosing from the few answer options. It’s the researcher’s job not only to pose quality questions but also to make sure that the style of posing questions is effective and extracts actionable data.
Here are 10 fantastic course evaluation survey templates you must check out. Notice the different styles and questions used to extract the most honest and valuable feedback.
1. The University of Massachusetts
Instructional experience
The University of Massachusetts uses the SRTI (Student Response to Instruction) tool as a campus-wide instrument to collect students’ perception of their course experience. It displays instructions at the beginning. This is useful for first-time survey takers. The survey questions revolve around aspects of teaching and capture student learning and satisfaction levels. This survey is appropriate for a variety of teaching styles and courses conducted at the university. 
2. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Course material-specific survey
It is essential to take a deep dive into topics that concern and impact the students learning. Take this example of the ‘course materials’ survey that takes a 360-degree view of the course material. Based on the feedback received from students, identify what’s lacking and what improvements can be made to the study material.
3. Owens Community College
Purpose specified at the beginning.
Before the survey is taken, the purpose of the survey must be displayed, so the audience knows why they’re taking the survey. The Owens community college’s student learning assessment committee, while choosing the best tool to fulfill the needs of the college, ran a survey among 1500+ faculty members. The study aims to understand the purpose of the tool and to understand what dimensions would be measured using the tool. – This is very well communicated at the beginning of the survey.
4. Webster University
Open-ended included questions
Webster University uses a simple 5-point rating scale (strongly agree – strongly disagree) for the convenience of its students. Students simply rank their level of agreement on a 5-point rating scale. An open-ended section is provided at the end of each question. This is important to capture additional comments that the surveyor must not have taken into consideration. 
5. University of Alaska Southeast
Survey divided by sections
The University of Alaska’s course evaluation survey is categorized by instructor performance, skill development, technology and equipment, instructor utilization, and library resources and services. This type of survey makes it very easy for the university to draw conclusions and understand the areas that need improvement as a whole.
6. Lehigh University
Ask the right questions
The Lehigh university’s survey looks rather neat – focusing on an individual instructor. The questions used are straightforward and probing. There’s scope for a lot of feedback to be extracted from the students experience.
Source: www.oirsa.lehigh.edu
7. Oklahoma Baptist University
Survey with a powerful tool
Use a good survey software – one that’s easy to use, and analyze results. Look for one that supports you with unlimited surveys, responses, and insights. The online survey is like a virtual event. Power it like never before. Using a suite of powerful connected experience tools, improve the survey taker’s experience to capture realistic data. It’s good practice also to show gratitude to the survey takers and thanking them in advance for the time they take to answer the survey. Building a personal rapport with survey takers and making them feel comfortable and wanted directly has an impact on studies. Firstly, more responses can be collected, and secondly, these responses tend to be honest and accurate. All this sums up to actionable data for sound decision-making.
Source: www.okbu.edu
8. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Student engagement and involvement survey
Universities run surveys also to gauge the students’ engagement and involvement in the course. The quality of education matters, and collecting feedback from students is a great opportunity to make improvements to the curriculum. Here are some sample questions used.
9. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Course structure
It is crucial to understand whether the structure of the course is beneficial to the students from their perspective. The students can best express any changes needed to the structure of the course. It is imperative that their feedback needs to be taken into consideration to ensure the productivity of the course. Here are some questions that must be asked to the students.
10. University of Wisconsin-Madison
General overall rating
Run a short survey at the end of the semester to understand the impact, usefulness, and satisfaction levels of the course. Run a trend analysis with year on year data to look at the course on a broader scale.
A course evaluation survey will help you get students’ perspectives on various academic courses. In addition to assisting students in sharing their inputs, a course evaluation survey also offers them an opportunity to reflect on their takeaways from the course.
Create a survey using different types of questions or use a ready-made survey template. Many online survey software lets you use free survey templates and customize them to suit your needs.
Use the survey results to enhance the course content, design, teaching method, and assignments. Find out what they like and what can be improved so that they enjoy their learning as well as develop skills.
Course evaluation surveys are great tools that assist in collecting student feedback. Here’s how course evaluation surveys help in effective education.
Here are the three steps to create an excellent course evaluation survey
Start with brainstorming on what areas you want to cover in the questionnaire. Use different types of basic and advanced survey questions to make the study engaging, comprehensive, and meaningful. Use custom logo, fonts, header, and footer to customize the look and feel. To make sure students are asked questions only about the courses they have enrolled, apply survey logic and branching. Reuse the same questions in different surveys by adding them to the question library. Or copy from evaluation surveys of other courses.
To save on time, you can also use ready-made course evaluation survey templates and customize them as per your needs.
If you have international students or have campuses in different countries, you can create multilingual surveys so that students can answer questions in the language of their choice.
Make your course evaluation survey more interesting by using an image, audio, and video questions. Use validation tools built-in survey software to ensure you get complete, accurate responses.
Send your course evaluation surveys through email, mobile app, QR code, social media, or embed them on your website. Import list of contacts and customize the email with embedded variables. View statistics like the number of emails sent responded, opened, and send a reminder mail to those who didn’t respond.
Use an online mobile-friendly survey to get more responses. Students spend a lot of time on their smartphones, notebooks, and tablets, so there is a high chance they might access them on these devices. It also gives them the flexibility to answer the surveys as per their schedule.
Generate reports to find out which course is the most favorite amongst students, which faculty has got the highest number of positive responses, and what areas do students want universities to improve. Get a glance of survey response and completion rates on the dashboard. Export survey results to commonly used formats like .pdf, .doc and .xls.
QuestionPro is the number 1 course evaluation survey software – trusted by hundreds of global universities. Here are the reasons to use QuestionPro’s course evaluation survey templates.
Here’s a list of the most sought-after course experience features, specially designed for universities and colleges.
Because students are an integral part of the education system, their inputs hold topmost priority. They may have great suggestions to improve the complete process of education. Hence, their feedback must be collected and analyzed by the faculty to enhance the quality of education.
