Does Size Matter? Searching for Rhyme or Reason in Course-End Student Surveys in a Large, Eclectic Physics Department

ORAL

Abstract

Over the past eight years, surveys of student opinion have been collected (near term-end) in all courses at Utah State University using the same survey instrument. The instrument consists of 25 questions, each of which can be responded to by choosing an integer ranking between 1 (``very poor'') and 6 (``excellent''). The University reports a statistical summary of all surveys each term in which all responses are treated equally irrespective of class size (a factor University administrators have asserted is negligible). Discussions of survey content at USU usually focus solely on two items: ``rate the course'' and ``rate the instructor.'' To some extent faculty tenure, promotion, and salary are based on these two aggregated data. Because of their possible impact on faculty careers, I have examined all responses in all surveys collected over the years in my department. Typical of social data, these results exhibit substantial variability and are highly non-normal. Appropriately treated, however, they reveal a significant class size dependence on the two ``rate the...'' global items. This fact harbors potentially important policy considerations for departments (like mine) that have a broad range of class enrollments.

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Authors

  • Stanley C. Solomon

    University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Rutgers University, Utah State University, Brigham Young University, University of Utah, NASA, Duke University, FMA Research, Colorado State University, Dartmouth University, Idaho State University, Physics Department, Idaho State University, Physics Department, Utah State University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Department of Physics, Nanjing University, China, University of California at Riverside, Physics Department, Colorado School of Mines, Physics Department, University of Utah, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, USU, Society of Physics Students, Arizona State University, Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Namiki 1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan, LANSCE-LC, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute, University of Amsterdam, Chemistry and Physics Dept., Virginia State University, University of Saskatchewan, Canada, Chalk River Laboratories, Physics Dept, Oxford University, Physics Dept, Utah State University, Sandia National Laboratories, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, DOE Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Sandia National Laboratories, National Center for Atmospheric Research