The Rate-a-Course System The research team: Amanda Stent Svetlana Stenchikova Sarah Hoffman Richard Gerrig Matthew Marge

What might be an optimal way to acquire course feedback from students? We could imagine interviewing them and probing their responses. How close can we get?

48 participants called the system (in the laboratory) and evaluated two courses. They had the opportunity to provide information about the instructor, exams, class size, assignments, and teaching assistant.

In each case, there was a fixed response question followed by an open-ended question: “Is the instructor very good, good, okay, bad, or very bad?” “He was good.” “Why did you think the instructor was good?”

Initiative Conditions 1. System: Speaker discusses all course topics in a randomized order. 2. Mixed: Speaker chooses order to discuss all course topics. 3. User: Speaker chooses which topics to discuss and chooses order

The data suggest that participants who could restrict the topics they discussed chose to ignore topics toward which they had a neutral attitude. In addition, they expended the least amount of effort on negative aspects of courses.

The data suggest that participants who could restrict the topics they discussed chose to ignore topics toward which they had a neutral attitude. In addition, they expended the least amount of effort on negative aspects of courses. Is this a response to demand characteristics?

The data suggest that participants who could restrict the topics they discussed chose to ignore topics toward which they had a neutral attitude. In addition, they expended the least amount of effort on negative aspects of courses. Is this a response to demand characteristics? Even so, participants who had full initiative provided different information from their peers.