Monthly Archives: April 2008

Average Satisfaction Scores

The basic PSOL has used the same 26 questions during all four of the survey administrations that we have conducted here at LSC. I decided to make a few simple calculations that are not normally made by Noel-Levitz.

One thing that they do with the data is aggregate them into five separate categories, such as Enrollment Services, Academic Services, etc. It seemed to me that you could also get an overall feel for student satisfaction by calculating the average satisfaction score of all 26 items. This simple average seems somewhat relevant to me as a measure of overall student satisfaction, and is probably more relevant than a couple of the PSOL overall satisfaction survey questions – such as whether their expectations have been met, exceeded, or not.

PSOL chart of average student ratings for four years
The chart above (click to enlarge) indicates the average scores over the four survey periods for students of LSC Online. I think it’s instructive to see that the average satisfaction score has increased each time on a year-over-year comparison. I realize that there is still an issue about whether the rights things (most important ones) are increasing in satisfaction rating, but I do think that this is still something worth paying attention to.

Desire2Learn Scores High in Reliability

This is cross-posted from my e-learning blog: Desire2Blog

The chart below shows the results over the past three years to the following statement:

The online course delivery platform (Desire2Learn or D2L) is reliable. (click photo to enlarge)

D2L reliability chart from PSOL

The PSOL is the main instrument that we use to gather information from students about the online programs and services that we provide. In two of the last three years, reliability of the VLE platform (we all use Desire2Learn) has been rated as the most important factor out of the 30 (31 this year) questions asked of all students. The satisfaction rating (6.01 in 2008), is also one of the highest scoring. This year it comes in with the 2nd highest satisfaction rating out of 31 statements, with first place going to “Registration for online courses is convenient.” (rating of 6.21)

I realize that the reliability factor does not capture all of the pertinent information about a VLE, but clearly it is an important one. Credit for the high student ratings goes both to Desire2Learn for the product development as well as to the MnSCU Office of the Chancellor staff who actually host and troubleshoot the service for our several hundred thousand user account holders.

Congratulations are in order for these high marks related to student satisfaction.

NOTE: the survey uses a 7 point scale where 6.0 is satisfied, 7.0 is very satisfied, 5.0 is somewhat satisfied, and 4.0 is neutral. The other 29 items rated below the D2L item ranged in satisfaction scores from 5.96 to 5.12.