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Faculty Customized Questions for Course Evaluations

Faculty members can submit custom questions to be included in course evaluation forms.

Beginning in January 2019, Harvard Extension School evaluations will be administered through Blue and will continue to be accessible online. Instructors can access evaluations for courses offered in 2019 and beyond by going to harvard.bluera.com/harvard and logging in with their HarvardKey. View an example of the types of custom questions you can choose to include in your evaluation.

Tips for creating custom questions

When designing questions, you may want to keep a few tips in mind:

  • Simple, straightforward questions are easier for students to respond to, and responses are generally easier for you to interpret.
  • Questions that focus on students’ individual perspectives, rather than their perception of the whole class, tend to yield more accurate, specific responses (e.g., “the instructor presented information at an appropriate pace” is vague, relative to “the instructor presented information that I could follow”).
  • Try to avoid duplicating the generic questions on the evaluation form. View the sample course evaluation questionnaire.

Examples of custom questions

Below are some examples of scaled and open-ended questions:

  • Evaluate the graduate-credit sections. (Quality scale: unsatisfactory, fair, good, very good, excellent)
  • If someone asked if this course was worth the tuition, I would say I was: (Satisfaction scale: very dissatisfied; dissatisfied, neutral, satisfied, very satisfied)
  • How often did you take advantage of the opportunity to revise and resubmit your papers? (Frequency scale: never, rarely, occasionally, frequently, always)
  • The group project on negotiation skills added considerable value to the course. (Agreement scale: strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, strongly agree)
  • I received timely and useful feedback on the assignments. (Quantity scale: none, very little, some, quite a bit, a good deal)
  • Provide one concrete example of how this course helped you become a better writer. (Open ended)