Online vs. offline course evaluation revisited: testing the invariance of a course evaluation questionnaire using a mult
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Online vs. offline course evaluation revisited: testing the invariance of a course evaluation questionnaire using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis framework Ellen Laupper 1
& Lars
Balzer 1
& Jean-Louis
Berger 2
Received: 30 July 2019 / Accepted: 5 October 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Survey-based formats of assessing teaching quality in higher education are widely used and will likely continue to be used by higher education institutions around the world as various global trends contributing to their widespread use further evolve. Although the use of mobile devices for course evaluation continues to grow, there remain some unresolved aspects of the classic paper and web-based modes of evaluation. In the current study, the multigroup confirmatory factor analysis approach (MGCFA), an accepted methodological approach in general mixed-method survey research, was chosen to address some of the methodological issues when comparing these two evaluation modes. By randomly assigning one of the two modes to 33 continuing training courses at a Swiss higher education institution, this study tested whether the two different modes of assessing teaching quality yield the same results. The practical implications for course evaluation practice in institutions of higher education as well as the implications and limitations of the chosen methodological approach are discussed. Keywords Course evaluation . Web survey . Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis .
Invariance measurement . Higher education . Mode effect
* Ellen Laupper [email protected]; https://www.ehb.swiss/ Lars Balzer [email protected] Jean-Louis Berger [email protected]
1
Evaluation Unit, SFIVET Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, Kirchlindachstrasse 79, Postfach, CH-3052 Zollikofen, Switzerland
2
Department of Education, University of Fribourg, Rue P.A. de Faucigny 2, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability
1 Introduction Originally, assessment of teaching quality was primarily used for formative purposes. However, during the 1970s in the USA, its use started to expand to human resources decisions concerning faculty personnel. Then, at the beginning of the new millennium, in the course of increased international cooperation and competition, a process of legalising quality for higher education institutions started, which created a need for practices of accountability (Borch et al. 2020; Donzallaz 2010; Skedsmo 2020; Spooren et al. 2017). Despite the well-known critiques of the use of survey-based formats to assess teaching quality in higher education, higher education institutions all over the world continue to use them (Spooren et al. 2017). This trend is fuelled by the abovementioned changes in the intentions of the use of such information over the last half century as well as the relative ease of implementing and standardising the procedure and collecting, processing, and communicating large amounts of data. To date the often simultaneous use
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