Guidelines for Open-Ended Evaluation Questions
Besides the set questions on the course evaluations, you may add a few of your own. Asking open-ended questions, ones where students write responses instead of making a choice of options, will yield the most useful information if they’re well crafted. Their observations, comments, and suggestions will give you actionable ideas to put into practice in your course. Follow these guidelines to get the clearest, most useful responses.
Ask only one thing per question.
No double-barreled questions, that is, questions about two or more things at once:
- DON’T: Double-barreled: “Should we reduce the number of midterms and assign more problem sets?”
- DO: One question: “Should we reduce the number of midterms?”
Be specific and clear.
Avoid jargon, double negatives, and vagueness:
- DON’T: Jargon: "How well did the formative assessments and inductive teaching techniques enhance your learning?"
- DON’T: Hard to understand: “Were the discussion sections helpful, or if not helpful, did you participate often enough, whether or not the TA was helpful?”
- DON’T: Too broad or vague: “How were the discussion sections?”
- DON’T: Double negatives: “Were you not unhappy with the discussion sections?”
- DO: Specific and clear: “How well did the sections help you master the lecture content?”
Phrase questions impartially.
- DON’T: Prejudicial: “You didn’t like that guest lecturer, did you?”
- DON’T: Inflammatory: “Was it unreasonable of the guest lecturer to assign so much reading?”
- DO: Impartial: “How much did the guest lecturer contribute to your understanding of <their topic>?”
Be clear whether you want facts or feelings, and phrase the questions to match.
- DO: Factual: “How well did the problem sets match what we taught?”
- DO: Feeling: “How satisfied were you with the problem sets?”
Finally, consider ending with an uplifting question, like an open-ended question asking for suggestions for the next time you teach the course.
Once you’ve written your questions, test them. Show them to a few other people and ask them what the question means to them. You’ll be surprised how many ways there are to interpret what you may think is a perfectly clear wording.
