Course Evaluation for Biostats VHM 802 at AVC - Winter semester 2014

The purpose of this questionnaire is to summarize each student's experience of the course, as an aid for me (Henrik, the instructor) in the planning of next year's course. Your opinions will be very important in determining the future layout of the course.

This survey is not related to the survey carried out by the GS&R Office; their purpose is essentially to flag any concerns with the teaching and/or teacher. I hope, of course, that your experience of the course has been good, but I'm looking here for more specific views on the course. Your answers will be anonymous and will not be looked at before all course activities are completed. Upon receipt of answers from all, or almost all, students I'll post a summary of the responses on the web page.

Utility of different course parts

(scale for utility/usefulness/benefit: 1=little, 2=some, 3=considerable, 4=high)

Course part	Worst thing(s) about	Best thing(s) about	Utility	Relative
			(1-4)	utility (%)
Lectures	.	.	.	.
(incl. handouts)
Lab sessions	.	.	.	.
(incl. solutions)
Textbook + notes	.	.	.	.
---
Home assignments	.	.	.	.
---
Course project	.	.	.	.
---
Overall	.	.	.	100%
---

Comments:

Work load

	less than 6 hours	6-8 hours	9-11 hours	12 hours or more
Weekly work load	.	.	.	.

Assess the amount work required for the course relative to your expectations and what you find reasonable:

	much less	less	as expected	more	much more
Overall work load	.	.	.	.	.

Comments about work load:

Course topics

If your last assessment was 1 (little), please state previous course(s):

Comments about course topics:

Specific questions

• The sessions of VHM 802 and the combined sessions with VHM 812 were taught in different schedules. While trying to abstract from the instructor personalities and the actual material covered in the two parts of the course, did you feel that one schedule was more efficient than the other for achieving the course objectives? Do you have any suggestions for changes in the schedule of VHM 802?

  
  

  
  

• The sessions of VHM 802 and the combined sessions with VHM 812 perhaps differed most by their level of detail included in the coverage of different methods. For example, VHM 812 sessions included advanced material for information/context that was not considered as core for VHM 802. On the other hand, some more advanced material in VHM 802 was left for self study or work with problems. In the future, some standardization between the two courses is likely to happen. I would appreciate your view on whether you think it would be beneficial to increase the level of detail for VHM 802 across all sessions or adapt the future teaching of regression topics in VHM 802 to the current level in VHM 802. Any thoughts you want to share about the utility of co-teaching the two courses would also be appreciated.

  
  

  
  

• Perhaps the most important recent change in the course has been the use of a "new" textbook (Oehlert). The previous textbook had been criticized as being very difficult to read, among other things because of its condensed style of writing. Please give your impression of the Oehlert textbook; you may e.g. comment on whether it in your view suffers from the same problem as the previous textbook, and on how well it is suited for the course (in terms of course objectives, scope and level).

  
  

  
  

• A potential challenge is the use of two very different texts (Oehlert and VER). Did you feel this was a problem, or do you think the two texts, with their differences, complemented each other?

  
  

  
  

• Perhaps the biggest challenge in the course is the use of statistical software packages. This year's course was the first in which students used multiple (>2) different packages (Minitab, Stata, SAS, R). In your view, should the course ideally be designed (i) to restrict statistical software to a single package, even if it would imply some procedures to be more difficult to carry out, or (ii) in its past format with two packages (Minitab and Stata) that complement each other in their strengths and weaknesses (in the instructor's view), or (iii) to cover multiple (>2) commonly packages and illustrate most analyses in all these software packages? Please note that the question is not pro or against the specific packages used, but whether it would be advantageous to have a different exposure to software packages.

  
  

  
  

• For future development of the course, are there any topics currently covered in VHM 802 you would suggest to be reduced substantially or dropped in a revised course? Or any topics from VHM 802 that you would suggest to be covered in more detail?

  
  

  
  

• In continuation of the previous question, are there any topics currently not covered in VHM 802 you would suggest for inclusion in a revised course?

  
  

  
  

• One of my impressions from this year's run of the course is that the practical components (solving lab problems, doing home assignments) seemed to lag substantially behind the theoretical components (lectures). I'd appreciate if you could give me your view on whether this impression is right, and if it is, your thoughts on why that happened and possible ways of changing the course delivery to avoid it from happening.

  
  

  
  

Any other comments:

Many thanks for your help!
- Henrik