Linking numerical scores with sentiment analysis of students' teaching and subject evaluation surveys: Pointers to teaching enhancements
Student evaluations of teaching and subjects are systematically used at many educational institutions, to get students' feedback. They usually consist of a number of questions where students can anonymously provide their responses on 5 or 7 point Likert scales, with provision to provide free comments. There are several different ways of evaluating student satisfaction (Elliott, 2002) and the numerical scores are often taken as the main indicator of student satisfaction, although much insight can be gained from analysing the free text comments. From the analysis conducted so far, a clear link appears to be present between students' free comments and the numerical scores selected by students. There is a clear trend in the types of comments and phrases used when comparing positive and negative feedback. This trend provides confidence in the validity of the survey scores as a useful feedback mechanism. General areas for feedback have also been identified and extracted from the data. This can be applied on a subject by subject basis, or used at the whole of institution level.