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Response rate vs class size

December 1, 2008 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , | by Nils Peterson | 1 comment

In response to an earlier post regarding online course eveluation response rate considerations,  Jenny Franklin noted the importance of high response rates in small courses because of small sample size. I thought it would be interesting to look at the response rate vs course size distribution. In a college where the Assistant Dean has been a proponent of online evaluations, and has worked diligently on raising response rates, I gathered the data from 348 courses (the whole college sample in Spring 2008).

The x-axis of this graph was scaled to include only courses with enrollments less than 75. That amounted to trimming off about a dozen courses with higher enrollment, including one 200+ student course. The graph is not meant to refute Jenny’s comment, but to provide a picture of the actual experience at WSU. If one were to hypothesize that this wide distribution is likely (and might be difficult to alter), what strategy might one take to course evaluations?

resonse-rate-vs-class-size

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