Online Course Evaluation Surveys: Smart Feedback Strategies [+Template]

As an online course creator, how frequently do you conduct surveys for your course? If you haven’t started, start today. Do you know that 89% of consumers around the world read reviews before purchasing products? So if you don’t conduct online course evaluation surveys on regular basis you won’t know how to improve your course and take it to next level. Depending on online reviews 79% of buyers buy digital products or courses. Therefore, consumer feedback plays a crucial role in the sales process.

Yes, it’s definitely true.

Feedback is important to move your business forward and to have a valuable dialogue with your students. Therefore, if you can get productive feedback from your learners, then you can use it to enhance your digital products for your eLearning business.

Now let’s get directly into the topic and discuss 3 smart ways to get feedback and a list of modern online tools to use for feedback.

Let’s begin the journey.

Table of Contents

3 ways to get online course evaluation surveys

1. Create in-course surveys

You have created and launched your course but now how do you now take valuable feedback from your learners. Therefore, the best way to ask is when the student is learning and gaining knowledge in your course. Add feedback forms in several sections of your course and ask them to share their feedback or add external links that open inside your course. This is the most direct way to ask your learners to evaluate the content, teaching methods, and overall experience.

You could also follow up with them via social media or SMS messaging. It is another great way to have a survey. 82% of text messages are read in the first 2 seconds of receiving them so accordingly you need to draft it. SMS also has higher response rates as it’s easy for people to reply to a simple survey through text. However, if you plan to conduct online course evaluation surveys then make sure you have updated mobile numbers for your course’s participants.

2. Email your students

This is another yet most effective way to conduct online course evolution surveys. It helps to reach out to your learners directly in their inboxes. After all, email is a fantastic way and has an open rate of over 23% in the education and training industry. Try to personalize the email subject to improve the chances and so your email is being opened. Be clear about what you are saying and go straight to the point. So that your students choose to open your email and respond.

Here are some examples of how you can write a good email subject lines:

5 minutes instead of feedback reminder -Take our short survey
We would like to hear from you – click it
What did you think of the course instead of asking this way ask them – Tell us what you think

Getting the email subject headline correct means that you know what you expect from them. Also, it’s essential to ask in a friendly way, address them with their names, explain yourself, and state what you need from them. However, if you using Graphy online course creation platform, then you are sorted. Creating, marketing, and selling all in one platform.

3. Conduct personal interviews

It is also one of the best-proven methods to know what exactly your learners are looking for from you. Talking to individual learners will give you more clarity. You can devote 10 minutes to an hour to speaking with them and answering their questions. Or even you can select representative learners to conduct 1:1 interviews if you have a large database. You are taking the time to understand them so that you can offer a more personalized solution.

However, personal interviews will help you to get insightful information when you are asking the right questions depending on your online course need. Once you design the questionnaire, send your customers a personal invite and schedule the date. Make sure you describe the subject before conducting the interview so that your customers will know and even they are also well prepared for the questions they have to ask you.

5 questionnaires for creating an engaging course evaluation survey

If you want to capture accurate and authentic feedback, use these five question types for your online course evaluation surveys.

Closed-ended questions: Closed-ended questions are manageable and comfortable to answer. The feedback gathered here is easy to analyze. Data collected helps in decision-making decisions.
Preference questions: This question helps to know one’s likes and dislikes about a specific topic. Use this question type to understand what the students like and dislike inside your course. You can further investigate why they didn’t prefer a specific option.
Multiple choice questions: Show several alternatives to the students for them to decide the answer option. The question is intuitive, universal, and yields clean data that’s straightforward to analyze.
Ranking questions: Students are given a list of answer options, and are asked to rank them in order of the most preferred to the least favorite option. However, you can use this question to evaluate the order of preference.
Open-ended questions: Every survey must have open-ended questions, without an open-ended comment box being vague. However, make sure you positively take each comment to improve your online course.

How to create a course evaluation template

Creating an online course evaluation surveys has a lot to do with the design and the questions asked. Here are some helpful guidelines when creating a template.

Ask mostly open-ended questions – Open-ended questions are probing and give more useful insight into a matter. Example of an open-ended question: If you could modify one thing about this online course what would you change?
Avoid using jargon. Make sure you use clear and simple language in your instructions.
Use straightforward, self-contained detailed questions. Avoid useless questions and ask questions that fulfill your end goal.
Have consistency and give plenty of options for them to choose from. For example, ask them to choose between 1 to 5.
Create the survey in a way so that it represents your brand effectively so use your logo and branding colors.
Close the survey by thanking your students and encouraging them to take further action on your website.

Carrying these factors into account can help come up with an all-inclusive survey that gets you the solutions you need.

Example of online course evaluation survey template

Here you go.

We have prepared a sample survey that you can use to assess your course and get constructive feedback. You can remove the questions that are irrelevant to your course/academy and add your own where needed.

What do you feel about the teaching method?
Would you add or remove it from the teaching method?

Was the feedback enough? Please describe.
Would you like a different way to get feedback? Please describe.
Would you like a different way to be considered? Please describe.

What changes would you suggest to enhance this course?
What did you like most useful about your teacher?
What did you like least about your teacher’s teaching?

3 best tools to collect the feedback for your online course

There are many handy tools to select and manage your answers. All you need is an online form that you can implant inside a course. These are some of the tools, check them out:

Google forms:

It is perhaps the most widespread and easiest tool to use when it comes to taking surveys. Use it to make attractive colored and themed-based surveys and also your progress gets saved automatically. Google Forms is free to use and has no limitations on the number of surveys or questions you make. Also, it permits you to collect online survey responses and implant your surveys into emails.

ReportR:

This is also a handy tool from Survey Anyplace, you can collect the answers from your survey evaluation. This report collects the answers, it also permits you to receive distinct suggestions for each different course, based on the answers. This allows you to link a report to every course, and re-evaluate what could be enhanced to deliver your students the educational value.

Typeform:

It is also an ideal option that delivers custom designing choices and allows you to create additional varieties of questionnaires, including multiple-choice, dropping lists, picture choice, and ratings. However, Typeform’s free version offers an endless amount of surveys and questions with up to 100 responses.

To conclude:

We hope now you are ready to conduct online course evaluation surveys.

But if you are a budding creator and thinking to start an online course business, then keep in mind that Graphy is one of the top online LMS platforms and very user-friendly for students and creators.

Hurry up, what waiting for, use 14 days free trial, launch your course and timely take valuable feedback from your students.

Must have tools for course creators in 2022