Self-Administered Mid-Semester Feedback Surveys

Mid-semester surveys are a great way to check in with students and receive formative feedback about your course. When you request feedback from students, you model reflective and responsive practices that communicate to students that you are dedicated to their learning and value their input. Unlike end-of-semester evaluations, mid-semester feedback allows both you and your students to act on the suggestions while the course is ongoing; thus, the process can have an immediate positive impact on everyone’s experience. This page will guide you through the various steps to consider when collecting feedback from students.

Envisioning a Mid-Semester Feedback Survey

1. Decide what you would like to know.

You can focus on any number of topics, ranging from students’ reactions to the content to the value of course readings to whether students feel the course format enhances learning. The type(s) of information you want to collect will determine the questions that you ask. For example, do you want reactions to a particular reading or guest speaker; a documentary that you have assigned; the effectiveness of class discussions; or something else?

2. Ask for feedback that you can realistically implement.

Request feedback that you can implement. If you cannot replace the textbook for the course with alternate readings, asking students if they find the textbook useful might not be the best use of your feedback session. Instead, you might ask if the amount of reading is reasonable, if students would like more discussion, or if more clarification around assignments is needed.

3. Avoid overly broad questions that don’t provide meaningful information.

Questions such as “What do you like/dislike about the course?” may not provide enough concrete feedback. Feedback is most helpful when it is specific, so you might ask students to share feedback on particular aspects of the course or encourage them to name the assignments or content that they find helpful/unhelpful.

Creating a Mid-Semester Feedback Survey

1. Set an expectation.

Ideally, you should put a description of the questionnaire on your course syllabus and on the course calendar to ensure students understand that the survey is built into the course design. This reinforcement prompts students to think of the survey as a component of the learning process and can improve response rates.

2. Choose your survey platform.

There are several options to consider when selecting a survey medium. We recommend choosing one of the following:

  • Paper – Paper is a useful survey medium as it allows for high response rates when administering the survey in class. It is, however, not fully anonymous, and deciphering handwriting can occasionally be challenging.
  • Canvas – Canvas is a convenient survey platform which your students already have access to and are familiar with. It allows for anonymous survey completion while still allowing you to track which students completed the survey. Review the Canvas guide for “How do I create a survey in my course?” for more information on how to set up your survey.
  • Qualtrics – Qualtrics is an online survey platform available to the AU community. It allows you to share a single anonymous link for students to access the survey. While Qualtrics cannot be directly linked to Canvas, it is equipped with more advanced survey design options, including complete anonymization of survey data. Learn more about creating a survey with Qualtrics.

3. Develop your survey.

Take a look at the sample surveys on this page for ideas about questions to ask. Contact the CFE team for more assistance on developing your survey.

4. In class or outside of class?

We recommend administering the survey during class to increase the likelihood of a high response rate. If you prefer to allow students to complete the survey outside of class, be sure to remind students of the value of participating in the feedback process.

5. Prepare students for the survey.

Explain the purpose and process of the questionnaire with students in class and through email before administering it. Inform students that you are conducting this survey voluntarily to improve their learning experience and assure them that their responses will remain anonymous.

6. Administer the survey.

If administering the questionnaire in class, conduct it at the beginning of class to ensure students have sufficient time to complete it (Kite, et al., 2015). If administering the questionnaire outside of class, select a window for completion that provides ample opportunity for students to participate; 1-2 weeks or more is ideal, depending on the course size and meeting schedule.

Sample Prompt

Thank you for taking the time to complete this feedback survey! I am excited to read and implement your feedback in our course to improve the learning experience for all. I will use the feedback you share, together with the responses of your peers, to improve our course. Once I have reviewed and compiled the responses, I will share with you an overview of the responses as well as descriptions of any changes that result from your feedback.

Please answer the following questions clearly and honestly using specific examples where possible. All responses are anonymous, and the survey is voluntary, so you do not have to fill it out. However, I highly encourage you to participate in the survey, as your responses will directly affect the rest of our time together!

Sample Questionnaires

Sample #1

(Freishtat, 2014)  

  1. What has been most helpful to your learning in the class so far?
  2. What has been least helpful to your learning in the class so far?
  3. What suggestions do you have that would help your learning in the class? 

Sample #2

(O’Neal-Hixson et al., 2017) 

  1. What do you LIKE MOST about this course so far?
  2. What do you LIKE LEAST about this course so far?
  3. What suggestions do you have for your INSTRUCTOR to improve your learning experiences in this course?
  4. What might YOU do to improve your own learning experiences and those of other students in this course?  

Sample #3

(Snooks et al., 2004) 

  1. What (if anything) is interfering with your learning?
  2. What suggestions do you have to improve your learning?
  3. What is your instructor doing that helps you to learn?  

Sample #4

(Claremont Colleges Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.) 

Select 3-4 of the following questions: 

  • What aspects of the course are best contributing to your learning? Please try to be as specific as possible. 
  • What aspects of the course are detracting from your learning? Please try to be as specific as possible. 
  • Based on your answers to the previous questions, what can I do differently to make this course a better learning experience? 
  • What can you do differently to make this course a better learning experience? 
  • What did you find of most value from the readings/assignments in the course and why? 
  • What is the most important/valuable thing you have learned in this course so far?
  • What is the least important/valuable thing you have learned in this course so far?
  • What, if anything, is still unclear?
  • Is the pace of the course too fast/slow/about right?
  • How many hours per week, on average, do you spend on this course outside of class time?
  • What suggestions do you have for improving this course? 

Review and Discuss the Results

1. Analyze the data.

When the responses have been collected, review the results as soon as possible. Here are some ways to analyze your data:

  • Read through, categorize, and prioritize student responses. Consider frequency (a comment that is often made merits attention) versus weight (an isolated comment that expresses a great deal of anxiety or confusion also merits attention). You may also consider the type of change students are suggesting, such as ones related to course design versus classroom instruction strategies.
  • Make a list of suggestions and prioritize them (e.g., changes which can be applied now versus in a future semester, changes which are immediately actionable versus changes you are not able to implement).
  • Look for themes, such as questions or concerns expressed by several students.

It can also help to assign comments to three ‘piles’ of feedback:

  • What aspects of the class can be changed now;
  • What aspects can be changed for a future semester;
  • What is not changeable about the course.

When reviewing feedback, try to acknowledge yourself in positive student comments. It may be tempting to focus on critiques, but it is important to recognize the energy and time students took to share what is going well in the course. Though not all feedback will be productive or actionable, try to practice empathy for your students’ perspectives. Students typically offer feedback for the same reason that instructors seek it: to establish a positive learning experience.

If possible, interpret your student feedback with others! Another person’s perspective, such as that of a fellow instructor, colleague, supervisor, or the CFE team, can help you sort through the feedback and recognize patterns; just be sure the feedback is anonymized before sharing it with others.

2. Discuss the feedback with the class.

Debriefing is essential to help students understand how their feedback will impact the course, and it shows students you take their feedback seriously. Start by thanking your students for taking the time to share their perspectives. Acknowledge what is going well in the course, take credit, and remind students about the deliberate decisions you have made to support their learning. Clarify any confusions or questions you have about their insights and guide the discussion toward actionable changes. Be clear and transparent about which aspects of feedback you will address immediately, which must wait until the course is offered again, and which you will not be able to address and why. Discussing your reasoning with students helps them to understand how instructional decisions are made and helps them understand what aspects of the course are and aren’t under your purview.

3. Act on the feedback.

Alter discussing the feedback with your students, implement the changes you agreed to. This step is critical to establishing a relationship of mutual trust between instructors and students, as it demonstrates to students that honest feedback can improve their learning experiences.

Documenting Student Feedback for Professional Development

Student feedback is an important component of any teaching portfolio. Including student feedback and showing how you applied it, demonstrates a reflective and learner-centered approach to teaching. If administering your own feedback survey or conversation, you may consider including that anonymous feedback in your teaching portfolio as a form of assessment

A teaching portfolio can be strengthened by the inclusion of multiple types of student feedback. SET scores are a required component of tenure, promotion, and reappointment teaching portfolios at AU; however, they are an incomplete expression of student feedback and subject to bias. Adding other types of feedback to your portfolio can offset the shortcomings of SET feedback and offer an expansive and nuanced snapshot of the student experience, in their own words.

1. Include context.

Share the questions and prompts provided to students and note that this is feedback from a mid-semester survey that you facilitated. You may include additional context for the survey, such as why you decided to collect feedback, how you determined which questions to ask, how you ensured respondent anonymity, or how you utilized the resulting feedback.

2. Share all of the data from your survey.

You may feel pressure to only share praise or positive feedback when including student feedback in a portfolio. Dong so, however, can paint an unrealistic picture of the teaching and learning experience, which will inevitably include challenges and change. Such misrepresentation also elides how you have learned and grown from critique. We encourage instructors to include the full set of responses for any survey they plan to include in their teaching portfolio. The purpose of a teaching portfolio is not to demonstrate your effectiveness as an instructor, but to illustrate how you have reflected on your teaching and continually improved over time. In your teaching statement, you may reference specific student suggestions and how you responded to them or how you decided which feedback to integrate.

3. Present the results.

You might choose to report your feedback as a summary bulleted lists of:

  1. Elements of the class that are helping students learn;
  2. Elements of the class that are causing students difficulty;
  3. Suggestions students offered to improve the course.

You can then follow up those three summary lists with a short reflection on changes you were able to address immediately, changes that you would make when teaching the course in the future, and changes you were not able to address and why. If you share student feedback from multiple semesters, you can demonstrate how the feedback has evolved over time to mirror the changes you have made to the course. For example, you may point out that you were asked to practice more transparency in one semester, and how such comments decreased (or are completely absent) in a later semester, after you implemented more transparency.

Resources:

Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. (n.d.) Mid‐Semester feedback FAQ. https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/mid-semester-feedback-tool-canvas

Claremont Colleges Center for Teaching and Learning. (n.d.) Formative teaching evaluations. https://teaching.claremont.edu/formative-evaluation/

Davis, B. & Tollefson, S. (n.d.) What to do with the information you gather on a midsemester evaluation. UC Berkeley Center for Teaching & Learning. https://teaching.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/respond.pdf

Freishtat, R. (2014, March 17). Because the squeaky wheel should not always get the grease: A different way to conduct mid-semester evaluations. Berkeley Center for Teaching & Learning. https://teaching.berkeley.edu/news/because-squeaky-wheel-should-not-always-get-grease-different-way-conduct-mid-semester

Guder, F., & Malliaris, M. (2013). Online course evaluations response rates. American Journal of Business Education, 6, 333–338.

Kite, M. E., Subedi, P. C., & Bryant-Lees, K. B. (2015). Students’ perceptions of the teaching evaluation process. Teaching of Psychology, 42(4), 307–314. 

McDonnell, G. P., & Dodd, M. D. (2017). Should students have the power to change course structure? Teaching of Psychology, 44(2), 91–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628317692604

O’Neal-Hixson, K., Long, J., & Bock, M. (2017). The eSGID process: How to improve teaching and learning in online graduate courses. Journal of Effective Teaching, 17(2), 45-57. https://eric.ed.gov/?q=SGID&pr=on&id=EJ1157448

Palmer, M., Wheeler, L., & Aneece, I. (2016). Does the document matter? The evolving role of syllabi in higher education. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 48(4), 36–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2016.1198186

Reisenwitz, T. (2016). Student evaluation of teaching: An investigation of non response bias in an online context. Journal of Marketing Education, 38(1), 7–17.

Snooks, M. K., Neeley, S. E., & Williamson, K. M. (2004). From SGID and GIFT to BBQ: Streamlining midterm student evaluations to improve teaching and learning. To Improve the Academy, 22 (1), 110-124. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2334-4822.2004.tb00405.x

Wickramasinghe, S. R., & Timpson, W. M. (2006). Mid-semester student feedback enhances student learning. Education for Chemical Engineers 1(1): 126–33.