I recently taught a short course, and, at the end, the students in the class filled out evaluation forms where they filled in the little circles. I just received copies of the forms in the mail. Amazingly (to me), 4 of the 25 forms in the class were filled out in error, with people getting the direction of the questions reversed (filling in “strongly disagree” where they meant “strongly agree,” etc.) Three of the four people caught themselves and scribbled over their mistakes (this wouldn’t work for a machine reader, though), but one never seemed to notice at all!
Perhaps this will be a less important issue now that everything is moving online, but just a reminder that it’s good to provide some confirmation of people’s choices. Especially fin areas more important than teaching evaluations.
Just curious…How do you know that the fourth person you mention filled out the questionnaire in error?
Did you know that the 4th person liked your class?
Was it because they filled in text that indicated they liked it even though the ratings did not?
filling in "strongly disagree" where they meant "strongly agree,"
How do you know this?
First off, 3 of the students actually started to fill it out wrong and then crossed the mistake out. This gave me the prior information–the base rate–that told me this was possible.
Regarding person #4, his/her answers in the first block of questions were all on the opposite of the responses in the other blocks, making me suspect that there was some confusion.
Also, one of the questions was something like, "How well did the instructor know the material?" I can easily see someone not liking the course, but there's no way someone would "strongly disagree" that I know the material. The course was based on 2 of my books! (Also, as noted above, the responses to the other blocks of questions made more sense.)