Adding Items Relevant to Online Courses to the SRT
Three new items have been added to the standard SRT (Student Rating of Teaching) form used by Twin Cities, Crookston, Morris, and Rochester. The new items were developed by a multidisciplinary, multicampus work group to be relevant to online and blended course delivery formats.
Beginning Spring 2019, the items are included in all electronically administered SRTs. Details regarding item development, pilot testing, and full launch are provided below.
During 2017-2018, a subcommittee of the U of M Online Steering Committee was formed to recommend new items for the SRT, specifically addressing online and blended courses. After a series of meetings, two rounds of student content review facilitated by OIT Usability Services, faculty feedback surveys, pilot testing in 2018, and data analysis, three items were identified for launch:
The new items are:
- (Instructor item) Interactions with the instructor helped me learn
- (Course item) The activities in this course supported my learning
- (Course item) The course site was easy to use
The item development process included instructional designers, academic technologists, teaching center staff, measurement specialists, policy experts, and faculty; multiple campuses were represented.
Items selected to pilot in Spring 2018 were administered in online-administered SRTs for 112 online and blended courses in 7 academic units. The pilot items were then removed from active administration while data analysis took place.
Data were de-identified in accordance with the pilot’s purpose (to evaluate items, not courses). Analysis was conducted to determine whether each pilot item added explanatory value without duplicating other new or existing items, showed some correlation with items in the same general categories, and reflected expected variance across courses. Participating faculty were also asked to review and provide feedback on the three items that emerged from the data analysis.
Beginning Spring 2019, the three new items are included in all electronically administered SRTs, regardless of course delivery format. Results of these items are reported for courses that are delivered online or primarily online, but not courses that are designated “partially online” or classroom-based. During the item review process, faculty feedback noted that the items - developed for online and blended courses - might not function the same way for classroom-based courses. Future analysis (scheduled for Spring 2020) will determine whether the new items may also provide value in evaluating other course formats.