Using a Focus Group to Enhance Course Evaluation Inclusion and Feedback

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-036-7_31How to use a DOI?

Keywords

evaluation; focus group; inclusion; participation

Abstract

To help instructors gain a better understanding of how students viewed and experienced their course, the novel use of a scenario-enhanced focus group was utilized at the end of a university course. This case study sought to identify an additional mechanism to use to directly obtain students’ feedback that would allow everyone to participate and contribute to course improvement. General consensus on end-of-course evaluations questions the validity of solely relying on end-of-course student-provided teacher evaluations to fully evaluate an instructor/course. By strategically utilizing a focus group, properly conducted (scenario enhanced), greater contributions were obtained from all students regarding their lived course experience. Key procedural components: role-play (instructor pretended to be a consultant conducting the focus group as opposed to the course professor: allowed students to be more frank/direct), use of breakout sessions (initial questions posed and then students allowed to discuss among themselves before sharing with the rest of the class), direct questions and then open-ended questions (facilitated deeper understanding and all students to contribute via generalized discussion). Positive results of this case study indicate usefulness for other instructors.

Research Contribution: Provides key insights into the successful implementation of the novel use of a scenario-enhanced focus group to improve student inclusion and participation while obtaining useful and diverse student feedback on their perceptions of the course and instructor effectiveness. Specific instructions and suggestions for generalizability to other courses are also provided.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - B. A. Anders
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/05/16
TI  - Using a Focus Group to Enhance Course Evaluation Inclusion and Feedback
BT  - Proceedings of the Erasmus Scientific Days 2022 (ESD 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 332
EP  - 338
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-036-7_31
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-036-7_31
ID  - Anders2023
ER  -