Summary of Physics 111 Course Evaluation I

 

On 9-Feb-00, students in the 1:00pm and 2:30pm lecture sessions of Physics 111 were given the following course evaluation. They were asked to anonymously complete the following sixteen questions. In addition, they were given the opportunity to provide written comments about the course. Following an overall summary of the evaluation, the sixteen questions are presented along with plots of the responses. Following the questions are links to all of the written responses.

Summary:

Overall, the students like the course. Two consistent themes in the written comments were:

They very much like the use of the web. Several commented that they do not see enough homework-like problem-solving examples in lecture and/or in discussion sections.

The two questions that generated the widest variety of responses had to do with the discusssion sections and the text book.

Question-by-Question Results:

Here are the sixteen questions where the students were asked to circle a number from 1 to 5. They were intructed that the term "instructor" referred to the lecture.

  1. Rate the instructor’s overall teaching effectiveness.

exceptionally high ® 5 4 3 2 1 ¬ exceptionally low

The average for this question was 4.1.

2 Rate the overall quality of the course.

exceptionally high ® 5 4 3 2 1 ¬ exceptionally low

The average response for this question was 3.7.

3 Rate the presentation of course material.

excellent ® 5 4 3 2 1 ¬ very poor

The average response for this question was 4.2.

4 Rate the instructor’s knowledge of the material.

very knowledgeable ® 5 4 3 2 1 ¬ not very knowledgeable

The average response for this question was 4.8.

5 Rate the quality of the labs in this course.

very good ® 5 4 3 2 1 ¬ very poor

The average response for this question was 3.6.

6 Rate the quality of the discussion sections in this course.

very good ® 5 4 3 2 1 ¬ very poor

The average response for this question was 3.2. Comments on the discussion sections varied from excellent to very poor.

7 Rate the instructor’s attitude towards the students.

excellent ® 5 4 3 2 1 ¬ very poor

The average response for this question was 4.8.

8 Rate the quality of the course compared to your expectations.

better than I expected ® 5 4 3 2 1 ¬ worse than I expected

The average response for this question was 3.65.

  1. How is the classroom atmosphere?

    2. excellent ® 5 4 3 2 1 ¬ very poor

    The average response to this question was 4.0.

  2. The instructor stimulates my intellectual curiousity.

    3. almost always ® 5 4 3 2 1 ¬ almost never

    The average response to this question was 3.7.

    11 This course uses the web too much.

    Strongly agree® 5 4 3 2 1¬ strongly disagree

    The average response to this question was 2.2. Based upon the written responses, the students very much like the amount of web material and feel that it is well organized.

  3. The Acts are an important part of class.

    4. Strongly agree® 5 4 3 2 1¬ strongly disagree

    The average response to this question was 3.8. This was interesting to me, because there are a fair number of students who do not participate in the act, at least outwardly. Observers of the class noted that even the students who do not actively discuss the acts with others do attempt to answer the questions.

  4. The text book should be used more for this course.

    5. Strongly agree® 5 4 3 2 1¬ strongly disagree

    The average response on this question was 3.1, but the rms is 1.3. Opinions vary on how the textbook should be used and how useful it is. A lot of students feel that the bound lecture notes are the text book and they do not like that the lecture follows the notes so closely. I tried to point out in lecture that the lecture notes purposely follow the lecture closely, so that classroom time can be spent on the concepts as opposed to stenography. To supplement the lecture, I have suggested that they use the text book.

  5. Amount of time in class for working on and discussing Acts.

    6. too much time ® 5 4 3(just right) 2 1 ¬ not enough time

    The average response for this question was 3.0. I was concerned that we weren’t giving the students enough of an opportunity to follow through and complete the Acts before we provided the answer.

  6. Rate the amount of time going through detailed derivations.

    7. too much time spent ® 5 4 3(just right) 2 1 ¬ not enough time spent

    The average response on this question was 2.7. In the written responses, the people in the tails (1 and 5) tended to comment that there was too much or not enough detailed derivations. A more general and consistent written comment was that they would like to see more problem solving in lecture and that the problems worked in the discussion sections do not correlate with homework and/or exam questions.

  7. Rate the pace of this course (so far).

too slow ® 5 4 3(just right) 2 1 ¬ too fast

The average response on this question was 2.5. This evaluation was given before the first exam. Several students commented that not enough time was spent on some of the derivations and solutions to the Acts.

Written Responses:

The following questions were asked for a written response. All of the written responses are included in the linked files.

What do you like most about lecture?

http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/kpitts/evaluation/most_1.htm

http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/kpitts/evaluation/most_230.htm

What do you like least about lecture?

http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/kpitts/evaluation/least_1.htm

http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/kpitts/evaluation/least_230.htm

How can the instructor make this course better?

http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/kpitts/evaluation/improve_1.htm

http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/kpitts/evaluation/improve_230.htm

Please list any other comments below or on the back. This is your opportunity to help improve this course!

http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/kpitts/evaluation/other_1.htm

http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/kpitts/evaluation/other_230.htm

 

Kevin Pitts

23-Feb-00