Goal
The goal of the Student Perceptions of Learning Environments Policy (SPLEP) is to support high-quality instruction by providing:
- instructors and academic programs with data about student perceptions related to instructional practices to support course improvement in MSU’s teaching and learning environments;
- instructional supervisors with one source of information for consideration in personnel decisions such as retention, promotion, salary, and tenure in recognition that effective teaching constitutes an important criterion in evaluating personnel; and
- students with information to guide decision-making related to course selection.
The SPLEP ensures that all students, in all learning environments, can provide feedback to their instructors. All instructional personnel, regardless of rank—including graduate teaching assistants, are covered under this policy in all credit-bearing classes (i.e., every course, every section, every modality, in every term).
Teaching Unit Policy Each teaching unit (i.e., a College, Department, or School) shall create and communicate a comprehensive policy related to collecting instructional data and is responsible for implementing that policy as outlined in the SPLEP document.
Student Perceptions of Learning Survey (SPLS) The Student Perceptions of Learning Survey (SPLS) is the centrally administered survey that consists of no more than 20 questions, including up to eight institution-level questions and at least 12 questions that are allocated to MSU’s degree-granting Colleges. The SPLS provides academic units with a standardized method to meet the SPLEP requirement. However, each teaching unit may approve one or more instruments to fulfill the SPLEP in accordance with unit bylaws. Even if an academic program uses its own instrument, all MSU students receive the SPLS with the institution-level questions, and if required by the College, all College-level questions are administered to all its students. The SPLS is not intended to serve as a direct indicator of student learning nor any other purpose than those outlined in the SPLEP.
Reports MSU will return valid SPLS data promptly to the instructional staff and their supervisor(s) after the instructor-of-record posts course grades. MSU will not report results that threaten a respondent’s confidentiality by revealing their identity; therefore, MSU will not publish, nor make public, results when responses are below a respondent number that maintains students’ confidentiality.
MSU will not report nor use results that identify the instructional staff in ways discordant with the SPLEP. Instructional data should be used according to the guidance provided by the institution, and they should not be used to compare instructional staff or publicized without an individual’s permission.
Information for Students MSU shall allocate a sub-set of the institution-level SPLS questions as public-facing, whose data will be available to MSU students. Public-facing survey data shall be augmented with institutional data to provide students with the best information possible to meet the needs of academic decision making (e.g., courses’ academic profile—major and year of study and average GPA).
Consult the MSU Policy Library for the full SPLEP, also available at
https://spls.msu.edu/policy.