Electronic Course Evaluations: Does an Online Delivery System Influence Student Evaluations?

Abstract: An increasing number of academic institutions are considering changing to Web-based systems to take advantage of efficiencies in the collection of end-of-semester course evaluaitons. In considering such a change it is important that researchers determine whether it will affect mean evaluaiton scores and response rates. We undertook this study in a department considering changing over to electronic course evaluations ot determine the effect such a change would have on the quality of resulting course evaluation data. Study results found that Web-based evaluation methods led to lower response rates, but that lower response rates did not appear to affect mean evaluation scores. They suggested that faculty evaluation scores will not be adversely affected by switching from paper to Web-based evaluations.