Getting More out of Educational Workshop Evaluations: Positively Packing the Rating Scale

• In Event: Measurement and Validity Issues in Survey Research

Abstract

Collecting evaluations following a professional development workshop or other events has become common practice for assessing workshop or event quality. However, these feedback forms often do not reflect best practices in survey development and result in average ratings that are uniformly high and uninformative. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of rating scales on workshop evaluations using an experimental design where participants were randomly assigned one of four evaluation forms with different rating scales following professional development workshops. We found that using a poor to excellent scale without mid-point labels yielded the highest average rating while scales that were off-centered, with more positive than negative scale points, yielded lower average responses and more variability.

Authors

• Joni M. Lakin, Auburn University

• Shankharupa Chaudhuri, Auburn University