CEDA
The CIEQ The Aleamoni Contact: Lawrence M. Aleamoni Comprehensive Data Evaluation Services, Inc. 6730 N. Camino Padre Isidoro Tucson, AZ 85718 520-297-5110 FAX: 520-621-9271 Course/Instructor Evaluation Questionnaire
General Information. The Aleamoni Course/Instructor Evaluation Questionnaire (CIEQ) is a student rating form and statistical analysis package designed for use as part of a program for assessing both a course and faculty teaching performance. The form is designed to provide primarily two kinds of information; (1) diagnostic information for professional enrichment and faculty development; and (2) statistical aggregate data, based on appropriate norms, which may be used as one part of the information used in personnel decision-making.
Format: The CIEQ rating form is available on a computer scorable answer sheet which is divided into five sections. The first section elicits student background information including student level, whether the student is taking the course as an elective, student gender, expected grade, the proportion of students taking the course as a part of their major, and the semester in which the evaluation takes place. The second section consists of three general items which elicit student responses to the course content, the instructor, and the course in general. Ratings in this section are made on a 6-point scale ranging from excellent to very poor. Section three includes 21 statements which represent five subscales or factors labeled General Course Attitude, Method of Instruction, Course Content, Interest and Attention, and Instructor. A sixth scale, Total, provides scores for all items combined. Items are rated on a 4-point scale ranging from agree strongly to disagree strongly. The forth section provides space for 42 optional items if the instructor wishes to include any additional items. These items may either be selected from an item catalog which is part of the CIEQ system or written by the instructor. The final section allows for open-ended responses to questions on course content, the instructor, course objectives, papers and home work, examinations, suggested improvements, and an evaluation of the course based upon student satisfaction with the course and student perceptions of its value as an educational experience.
Results. The results of the CIEQ are presented on computer output in four parts. The first part presents course and instructor identification. The second part presents student background information and results for the three general items. Given are the proportion and number responding to each item alternative (and the proportion not responding). The mean and the standard deviation are also presented for each of the general items. The third part lists the responses to the five subscales. Included are the percentage responding, the mean response, the standard deviation, the reliability coefficient (based upon an internal consistency calculation), and a variety of normative comparisons. These comparisons include the rank norm (a comparison of the course with all courses given by instructors at the same rank), the level norm (a comparison of the course with all courses at the same course level), the institution norm (a comparison of the course with all courses at the university), the college norm (a comparison of the course with all other courses in the appropriate college within the university), the nationwide norm (a comparison of the course to all the courses throughout the US which have used the CIEQ), and the department norm (a comparison of the course with all other courses in a particular department). The final part lists each of 21 standard items and gives the proportion and number responding to each alternative, the most favorable response, the mean response, the standard deviation, and the college-wide norm decile (a comparison of the mean response with those obtained throughout the college or university) for each item.
Special Features. The optional item catalog (Aleamoni & Carynnk, 1977) contains 350 items divided into 20 categories. The Results Interpretation Manual (Aleamoni, undated) provides information on scale development and validation, recommended uses and administrative procedures, description and interpretation of results, and decile norm cutoff scores for seven data bases. Institutions wishing to use the CIEQ may select one of two options: (1) CIEQ forms may be purchased individually from Comprehensive Data Evaluation Services, Inc. (CODES) and returned for processing, or (2) an institution may choose to purchase the computer analysis program and rights to print and use the CIEQ under a royalty arrangement. Institutions purchasing the program receive annual updates of the normative data base derived from the hundreds of institutions presently using the CIEQ. The computer program is written for the Apple Macintosh computer and is designed to be used as a simple, desk-top system.
Development and Validation. The CIEQ was developed in 1975 through an analysis of the Illinois Course Evaluation Questionnaire (CEQ). The original CEQ was based on an initial pool of over 1000 items collected in the early 1960s, reduced and refined by a variety of techniques, including factor analysis, to a form containing 50 items (Aleamoni & Spencer, 1973). The current version (Form 76) uses normative data from roughly 1600 course sections at the University of Arizona and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and 6800 sections from other US institutions gathered from 1972 through 1978. Internal consistency reliability coefficients for the five subscales range from .81 to .94 (Aleamoni, undated). Test-retest reliability ranges from .92 to .98 for the subscales and the total and from .8 1 to .94 for individual items (Gilmore, 1973). Aleamoni (1978) reviews several studies of the CEQ which he claims are generalizable to the CIEQ. He reports that the CIEQ is not affected by gender, term, curriculum, class size, instructor rank, required/elective, major/minor, student status, pass/fail, expected grade, and final grade. In addition, the ratings of colleagues and trained judges appear to correlate with CIEQ student ratings (Aleamoni, 1978). Research on the CIEQ has shown it to be a valid, reliable measure of student reactions to the course and instructor. The CIEQ provides meaningful information that may be successfully used in a program of instructional improvement or as part of a comprehensive faculty evaluation system designed to provide data for faculty personnel decisions. For more information or to request a sample packet contact Dr. Lawrence Aleamoni at the address above.