Data Mining of Undergraduate Course Evaluations
In this paper, we take a new look at the problem of analyzing course evaluations. We examine ten years of undergraduate course evaluations from a large Engineering faculty. To the best of our knowledge, our data set is an order of magnitude larger than those used by previous work on this topic, at o...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Vilnius University
2016-04-01
|
| Series: | Informatics in Education |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://infedu.vu.lt/doi/10.15388/infedu.2016.05 |
| _version_ | 1828237332720910336 |
|---|---|
| author | Yuheng Helen JIANG Sohail Syed JAVAAD Lukasz GOLAB GOLAB |
| author_facet | Yuheng Helen JIANG Sohail Syed JAVAAD Lukasz GOLAB GOLAB |
| author_sort | Yuheng Helen JIANG |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In this paper, we take a new look at the problem of analyzing course evaluations. We examine ten years of undergraduate course evaluations from a large Engineering faculty. To the best of our knowledge, our data set is an order of magnitude larger than those used by previous work on this topic, at over 250,000 student evaluations of over 5,000 courses taught by over 2,000 distinct instructors. We build linear regression models to study the factors affecting course and instructor appraisals, and we perform a novel information-theoretic study to determine when some classmates rate a course and/or its instructor highly but others poorly. In addition to confirming the results of previous regression studies, we report a number of new observations that can help improve teaching and course quality. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T20:46:59Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-5d7fca74f3c749e298bd370c153cfac7 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1648-5831 2335-8971 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T20:46:59Z |
| publishDate | 2016-04-01 |
| publisher | Vilnius University |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Informatics in Education |
| spelling | doaj.art-5d7fca74f3c749e298bd370c153cfac72022-12-22T03:17:15ZengVilnius UniversityInformatics in Education1648-58312335-89712016-04-011518510210.15388/infedu.2016.05Data Mining of Undergraduate Course EvaluationsYuheng Helen JIANG0Sohail Syed JAVAAD1Lukasz GOLAB GOLAB2University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, CanadaUniversity of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, CanadaUniversity of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, CanadaIn this paper, we take a new look at the problem of analyzing course evaluations. We examine ten years of undergraduate course evaluations from a large Engineering faculty. To the best of our knowledge, our data set is an order of magnitude larger than those used by previous work on this topic, at over 250,000 student evaluations of over 5,000 courses taught by over 2,000 distinct instructors. We build linear regression models to study the factors affecting course and instructor appraisals, and we perform a novel information-theoretic study to determine when some classmates rate a course and/or its instructor highly but others poorly. In addition to confirming the results of previous regression studies, we report a number of new observations that can help improve teaching and course quality.https://infedu.vu.lt/doi/10.15388/infedu.2016.05course evaluationentropyregression |
| spellingShingle | Yuheng Helen JIANG Sohail Syed JAVAAD Lukasz GOLAB GOLAB Data Mining of Undergraduate Course Evaluations Informatics in Education course evaluation entropy regression |
| title | Data Mining of Undergraduate Course Evaluations |
| title_full | Data Mining of Undergraduate Course Evaluations |
| title_fullStr | Data Mining of Undergraduate Course Evaluations |
| title_full_unstemmed | Data Mining of Undergraduate Course Evaluations |
| title_short | Data Mining of Undergraduate Course Evaluations |
| title_sort | data mining of undergraduate course evaluations |
| topic | course evaluation entropy regression |
| url | https://infedu.vu.lt/doi/10.15388/infedu.2016.05 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT yuhenghelenjiang dataminingofundergraduatecourseevaluations AT sohailsyedjavaad dataminingofundergraduatecourseevaluations AT lukaszgolabgolab dataminingofundergraduatecourseevaluations |