Student Evaluation of Their Postgraduate Courses: A Case Study at the Royal University of Phnom Penh

Abstract

A structured questionnaire, collected anonymously from 14 master-level online courses for six semesters to 270 students, was examined to explore students’ evaluation of their courses, their instructors’ teaching performances, the learning materials and resources, and the online learning platforms. A quota sampling was employed for selecting these participants from a large public teaching university located in the city. These students were asked to complete the structured questionnaire within a one-week period. One hundred and eighty-one questionnaires were completed and returned to the researcher. The study found that students highly satisfied their online courses. Various main aspects that students mostly preferred comprising their instructors’ personality, instructors’ in-depth knowledge of the courses, their teaching experiences, their encouragement and motivation provided to students, the conduct of the course, learning activities that encouraged students to conduct further own research, the easiness of uploading their coursework written tasks and learning materials and resources, and the employment of assessment tasks to measure their learning achievements. It was found that there were various main obstacles being identified to hinder students from fully participating in their online learning including internet connection, learning platforms, lack of physical contacts during class time, and students’ motivation and engagement with their online learning activities. It was further found that the qualitative comments were valuable to make informed decisions for improving overall courses quality including curriculum, teaching pedagogy, assessments, and resources. The study concluded that the student course evaluation instrument measured master-level online courses in the areas of course design and delivery effectively.