After instituting the What•Do•You•Think?® system campus wide, administrators at the University of Nevada, Reno were faced with the challenge of how to encourage student participation and achieve higher response rates across the University’s many colleges and departments.
Using What•Do•You•Think? response rate reports, Dr. Russell Stone, Assistant Vice Provost, University Assessment and Accreditation, was able to identify faculty who achieved an 85 percent or higher evaluation response rate in their classes of 20 or more students. These faculty members became known as The 85 Percent Club and were entered into a raffle for premium parking passes. (“As you know,” says Stone, “in most institutions in America, those parking passes are worth their weight in gold!”) Suddenly, faculty across campus had an incentive to engage in the new online process and, in turn, encouraged their students to participate in their course evaluations. Participating students, likewise, were entered into raffles to receive items such as Starbucks® gift cards and popular items from the University bookstore.
As more faculty entered the 85 Percent Club, Stone used the What•Do•You•Think? all-purpose surveys to invite Club members to share their suggestions and the strategies they used to achieve high course evaluation response rates.
Stone also used the What•Do•You•Think? all-purpose surveys to collect feedback from teaching faculty on a regular basis and, in essence, evaluate the evaluations. Stone believes that maintaining a dialogue with faculty has helped to make the implementation of What•Do•You•Think? across campus a success. “It helps the faculty know they’re an important part of the process,” he says.
Learn more about the What•Do•You•Think? Course Evaluation and Survey System here.
