Mid-Semester Course Evaluations: Meta Evaluation of Higher Education Course Coordinators’ Evaluative Practices

Abstract

Background: Mid-semester evaluations are gaining traction as a means to gather evaluation data for formative purposes. However, it is not clear if course coordinators who conduct these evaluations are adequately equipped with evaluative knowledge and skills to guide them through their evaluative processes.
Objectives: This study is a meta-evaluation of course coordinators’ mid-semester evaluative practices in a Higher Education institution language centre and the extent to which their evaluative practices are attuned to RUFDATA for its preparatory design framework in the evaluative process and Utilization-Focused Evaluation (UFE) for its sets of principles with regards to uses and users and how these impact on the design and use of the evaluation. 
Research design & subjects: Data was gathered using meta evaluative mixed methods from three groups of participants consisting of course coordinators, academics who taught on their courses and their learners.
Results: The results imply that whilst most course coordinators who participated in the study conducted mid-semester evaluations and that their evaluative practices contained some elements from the frameworks, it is problematic to align their evaluative practices and processes against these tools due to the challenges that they encountered in their evaluative processes.
Conclusions: As important agents of evaluations in mid semester evaluations, it should be noted that course coordinators are not trained evaluators and conducting evaluations does not constitute a major component of their professional duties and roles. This study has implications for higher education policies and practices, commissioners, and users of evaluations.