A “COVID bump” in communication course evaluations: Implications for future assessment

ABSTRACT

Student course evaluations (SETs) were subjects of debate among educational administrators before the COVID-19 pandemic, but recently have been examined as an indicator of student satisfaction during the transition to online instruction. The current study combines a review of SET research as well as data from multiple disciplines, including IMC, at a large US midwestern university before, during and after COVID-19 online-only instructional protocols. Slight variations in quantitative evaluations of teaching were found, with communication classes exhibiting a larger ‘COVID bump’ than other disciplines. Analysis of verbatim comments yielded insight into students changing how and on what basis they evaluated their courses. The study offers new methods of analyzing SETs, and implications for teaching and training aspiring communication professionals beyond the recent global pandemic.

KEYWORDS:

• Sentiment analysis
• teaching evaluations
• COVID-19
• Communication Education
• machine learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jami A. Fullerton

Jami A. Fullerton serves as the Associate Dean in the School of Global Studies and is a full professor in the School of Media and Strategic Communications at Oklahoma State University. Her research interests include advertising education, nation branding and public diplomacy. She the co-author of Principles of Strategic Communication, an introductory textbook published by Routledge.

Alice Kendrick

Alice Kendrick is a Professor in the Temerlin Advertising Institute, Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, TX. Her research and writing interests include advertising account planning, marketing communication and public diplomacy, message content, and advertising education.

John P. Schoeneman

John P. Schoeneman is an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University in the School of Global Studies. Substantively, his research agenda focuses on power in international political and economic networks. Methodologically, his interests are social network analysis models, text analysis, and machine learning.