Towards the Development of an Evaluation Questionnaire for Academic Conferences

Abstract

each year, academic conferences are held at destinations throughout the world. These conferences provide benefits to the host destination's economy as well as to the conference participants. Involving travel and accommodation, academic conferences can be classified as business tourism. Academics often have a range of conferences from which to choose. The conference experience therefore may be important in the decision to reattend or recommend a conference to other potential attendees. while many conference organizers distribute a "conference evaluation sheet" at the end of a conference, there is no evidence of a standardized questionnaire that evaluates the entire conference experience. The objective of this work is to make such a contribution by identifying the attributes that are deemed to be important to the academic conference attendee and assigning a measurement scale for each attribute. The attributes are identified by way of a review of the services and tourism literature, and through semistructured interviews with academics. In addition to evaluating the entire conference experience, the questionnaire can be used to make longitudinal comparisons of a conference, and comparisons between conferences.

MICE Tourism in the Pre-COVID-19 Era: Key Determinants of Academic Conference Attendees’ Satisfaction

“…In other words, the satisfaction of academic conference attendees was measured through 6 variables, while the last variable represents the overall satisfaction. The questions were taken and adjusted based on questionnaires developed by (Lewis & Kerr, 2012), to measure the full experience or satisfaction of conference attendees, given that the questionnaires distributed by conference organizers after the closing of the conference measure only some aspects of satisfaction. The questionnaire is designed to monitor the entire attendees' experience, from the assessment of transport to the destination where the conference is held, all the way to the assessment of transport upon returning to the place of residence.…”

“…Academic conferences are events where the work and research of academics -professors, researchers, experts and students are presented; they are an ideal place for gathering experts from a certain field that is the subject of the conference, exchanging experiences, knowledge and establishing cooperation between researchers and institutions they represent (Campos, Leon, & McQuillin, 2018;Lewis & Kerr, 2012). Academic conferences can, therefore, provide an abundance of scientific and societal impacts (Hauss, 2021).…”

“…To what extent are your expectations met? Source: Authors, based on Lewis & Kerr (2012) In the analysis of the collected data, descriptive analysis, correlation, and simple and multiple regression were used. First, a descriptive statistical analysis was conducted on the entire sample of respondents.…”

MICE Tourism in the Pre-COVID-19 Era: Key Determinants of Academic Conference Attendees’ Satisfaction

“…In other words, the satisfaction of academic conference attendees was measured through 6 variables, while the last variable represents the overall satisfaction. The questions were taken and adjusted based on questionnaires developed by (Lewis & Kerr, 2012), to measure the full experience or satisfaction of conference attendees, given that the questionnaires distributed by conference organizers after the closing of the conference measure only some aspects of satisfaction. The questionnaire is designed to monitor the entire attendees' experience, from the assessment of transport to the destination where the conference is held, all the way to the assessment of transport upon returning to the place of residence.…”

“…Academic conferences are events where the work and research of academics -professors, researchers, experts and students are presented; they are an ideal place for gathering experts from a certain field that is the subject of the conference, exchanging experiences, knowledge and establishing cooperation between researchers and institutions they represent (Campos, Leon, & McQuillin, 2018;Lewis & Kerr, 2012). Academic conferences can, therefore, provide an abundance of scientific and societal impacts (Hauss, 2021).…”

“…To what extent are your expectations met? Source: Authors, based on Lewis & Kerr (2012) In the analysis of the collected data, descriptive analysis, correlation, and simple and multiple regression were used. First, a descriptive statistical analysis was conducted on the entire sample of respondents.…”

Intellectual Contributions Made Through the Academy of Finance Journals: 2003-2016

“…Authorship in national proceedings issues was ranked fourth in relative importance, while publication in regional proceedings was ranked tenth in relative importance. However, the importance of proceedings may have declined recently, as exemplified by Lewis and Kerr's (2012) proposed questionnaire regarding academic conferences. While the open-ended questions lend themselves to discussing the perceived value of conference proceedings, there is no specific question (across 41 items) in Lewis and Kerr's survey that directly asks for an assessment of conference-related publications.…”

Exploring the Questionable Academic Practice of Conference Paper Double Dipping

“…As mentioned earlier, not being able to attend prestigious conferences may be a source of such strains for academic researchers, because it will limit access to important resources. These include feedback on ways to improve one's research such that it will be better prepared for journal submissions (Gross & Fleming, 2011;Lewis & Kerr, 2012); and possible prestige from winning a best paper award, and networking opportunities (Dometrius, 2008b;Lee, Lee, & Wadhwa, 2010). In particular, developing and maintaining relationships with collaborators and other influential members of the scholarly community (e.g., journal editors, thought leaders, and future tenure-and-promotion letter writers) have been highlighted as being important for producing impactful research that will eventually be published in high-quality journals (Lewis & Kerr, 2012;Tähtinen, Ryan, & Holmlund, 2016) as well as for adequate career progression (Deardorff, 2015).…”

MICE Tourism in the Pre-COVID-19 Era: Key Determinants of Academic Conference Attendees’ Satisfaction

“…In other words, the satisfaction of academic conference attendees was measured through 6 variables, while the last variable represents the overall satisfaction. The questions were taken and adjusted based on questionnaires developed by (Lewis & Kerr, 2012), to measure the full experience or satisfaction of conference attendees, given that the questionnaires distributed by conference organizers after the closing of the conference measure only some aspects of satisfaction. The questionnaire is designed to monitor the entire attendees' experience, from the assessment of transport to the destination where the conference is held, all the way to the assessment of transport upon returning to the place of residence.…”

“…Academic conferences are events where the work and research of academics -professors, researchers, experts and students are presented; they are an ideal place for gathering experts from a certain field that is the subject of the conference, exchanging experiences, knowledge and establishing cooperation between researchers and institutions they represent (Campos, Leon, & McQuillin, 2018;Lewis & Kerr, 2012). Academic conferences can, therefore, provide an abundance of scientific and societal impacts (Hauss, 2021).…”

“…To what extent are your expectations met? Source: Authors, based on Lewis & Kerr (2012) In the analysis of the collected data, descriptive analysis, correlation, and simple and multiple regression were used. First, a descriptive statistical analysis was conducted on the entire sample of respondents.…”

Intellectual Contributions Made Through the Academy of Finance Journals: 2003-2016

“…Authorship in national proceedings issues was ranked fourth in relative importance, while publication in regional proceedings was ranked tenth in relative importance. However, the importance of proceedings may have declined recently, as exemplified by Lewis and Kerr's (2012) proposed questionnaire regarding academic conferences. While the open-ended questions lend themselves to discussing the perceived value of conference proceedings, there is no specific question (across 41 items) in Lewis and Kerr's survey that directly asks for an assessment of conference-related publications.…”

Exploring the Questionable Academic Practice of Conference Paper Double Dipping

“…As mentioned earlier, not being able to attend prestigious conferences may be a source of such strains for academic researchers, because it will limit access to important resources. These include feedback on ways to improve one's research such that it will be better prepared for journal submissions (Gross & Fleming, 2011;Lewis & Kerr, 2012); and possible prestige from winning a best paper award, and networking opportunities (Dometrius, 2008b;Lee, Lee, & Wadhwa, 2010). In particular, developing and maintaining relationships with collaborators and other influential members of the scholarly community (e.g., journal editors, thought leaders, and future tenure-and-promotion letter writers) have been highlighted as being important for producing impactful research that will eventually be published in high-quality journals (Lewis & Kerr, 2012;Tähtinen, Ryan, & Holmlund, 2016) as well as for adequate career progression (Deardorff, 2015).…”

MICE Tourism in the Pre-COVID-19 Era: Key Determinants of Academic Conference Attendees’ Satisfaction

“…In other words, the satisfaction of academic conference attendees was measured through 6 variables, while the last variable represents the overall satisfaction. The questions were taken and adjusted based on questionnaires developed by (Lewis & Kerr, 2012), to measure the full experience or satisfaction of conference attendees, given that the questionnaires distributed by conference organizers after the closing of the conference measure only some aspects of satisfaction. The questionnaire is designed to monitor the entire attendees' experience, from the assessment of transport to the destination where the conference is held, all the way to the assessment of transport upon returning to the place of residence.…”

“…Academic conferences are events where the work and research of academics -professors, researchers, experts and students are presented; they are an ideal place for gathering experts from a certain field that is the subject of the conference, exchanging experiences, knowledge and establishing cooperation between researchers and institutions they represent (Campos, Leon, & McQuillin, 2018;Lewis & Kerr, 2012). Academic conferences can, therefore, provide an abundance of scientific and societal impacts (Hauss, 2021).…”

“…To what extent are your expectations met? Source: Authors, based on Lewis & Kerr (2012) In the analysis of the collected data, descriptive analysis, correlation, and simple and multiple regression were used. First, a descriptive statistical analysis was conducted on the entire sample of respondents.…”

Intellectual Contributions Made Through the Academy of Finance Journals: 2003-2016

“…Authorship in national proceedings issues was ranked fourth in relative importance, while publication in regional proceedings was ranked tenth in relative importance. However, the importance of proceedings may have declined recently, as exemplified by Lewis and Kerr's (2012) proposed questionnaire regarding academic conferences. While the open-ended questions lend themselves to discussing the perceived value of conference proceedings, there is no specific question (across 41 items) in Lewis and Kerr's survey that directly asks for an assessment of conference-related publications.…”

Exploring the Questionable Academic Practice of Conference Paper Double Dipping

“…As mentioned earlier, not being able to attend prestigious conferences may be a source of such strains for academic researchers, because it will limit access to important resources. These include feedback on ways to improve one's research such that it will be better prepared for journal submissions (Gross & Fleming, 2011;Lewis & Kerr, 2012); and possible prestige from winning a best paper award, and networking opportunities (Dometrius, 2008b;Lee, Lee, & Wadhwa, 2010). In particular, developing and maintaining relationships with collaborators and other influential members of the scholarly community (e.g., journal editors, thought leaders, and future tenure-and-promotion letter writers) have been highlighted as being important for producing impactful research that will eventually be published in high-quality journals (Lewis & Kerr, 2012;Tähtinen, Ryan, & Holmlund, 2016) as well as for adequate career progression (Deardorff, 2015).…”