Course evaluation survey template
A course evaluation is read by three audiences — the instructor, the department and next year’s students — and they need different things from it. This template uses agreement statements for what can be compared across courses and open questions for what only this course’s students can say.
The survey beside this text is live. Fill it in and submit it — it validates exactly as it would for a real respondent, and saves nothing.
Agreement statements in grouped matrices
Content and teaching each have their own matrix on the same five-point scale. The Results tab shows a stacked bar for every statement, so a strong course with one weak area is easy to spot.
A workload scale where the middle is best
Workload is a labelled scale from “Much too light” to “Much too heavy”. The chart shows which side of “About right” the class landed on.
One response per student, without sign-in
One vote per browser refuses a second submission from the same browser, which keeps the count honest without collecting student identities.
No card required.
Course Evaluation Survey
Live previewHow to use this template
5 steps in the editor. Nothing here needs a paid plan.
- Press “Use this template” and put the course code and term in the title.
- Edit the statements to match how the course was taught — remove the lab statement for a lecture-only course, for example.
- Under Settings → Voting & results choose one vote per browser, and keep results on “Only me”.
- Give students time in class to complete it. An evaluation done in a timetabled slot reaches the students an emailed link misses.
- After the closing date, read the stacked bars per statement on the Results tab and export the open answers for the instructor.
Questions in this survey
6 questions, using 4 of the 24 question types available.
| Question | Question type | Required |
|---|---|---|
| The course | Matrix grid | Yes |
| The teaching | Matrix grid | Yes |
| The workload was… | Likert scale | Yes |
| Overall, how would you rate this course? | Rating | Yes |
| What helped your learning most? | Long text | Optional |
| What should change next time the course runs? | Long text | Optional |
What goes wrong with this survey
Specific to this template, not general advice about surveys.
Evaluating after grades are released
Ratings track grades closely once students know them. Close the evaluation before results come out.
Statements about the instructor as a person
“The instructor was likeable” invites bias and helps nobody teach better. Keep statements on observable behaviour — clarity, feedback, organisation.
Reading a mean from eight responses
In a small class one outlier moves every average. Read the distribution in the stacked bars, not a single number.
Ignoring the open answers
The scales say where; the comments say why. “What should change” is usually the most actionable part of the whole evaluation.
Questions about this survey
Are course evaluations anonymous here?
The template asks for no name, student number or email. Each response records the time and browser type. In a very small class, open comments can identify a student by what they describe — tell students so.
When should a course evaluation be run?
In the last two weeks of teaching, before the final assessment. After the exam, the evaluation measures the exam.
Can I compare courses?
Use the same statements, unchanged, for each course and duplicate the survey per course. Each copy has its own results, and identical statements make the stacked bars directly comparable.
Can students see the results?
Only if you publish them. Set results to “After voting closes” under Voting & results to release the charts once the evaluation period ends. Written comments are not shown on the public results page.