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+--- Thread: For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations... (/showthread.php?tid=45989)
For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations... - PeterB - 12-22-2007
... as professors, we get evaluated each semester -- anonymous student evaluations ...
In thinking about how to interpret them, I ran across these:
http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/may03/fich.html
http://www.hoofnagle.net/sga/eac/improve.html
http://mtprof.msun.edu/Fall1997/HOWTORAI.html
... regrettably, I think there's a lot of truth in the first link above. Unfortunately, the things mentioned in the second link really do matter. And the really sad thing is that I cannot tell if the third link is meant to be serious, or in jest -- one could argue it either way.
Re: For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations... - MacMagus - 12-22-2007
> I cannot tell if the third link is meant to be serious, or in jest -- one could argue it either way.
FYI: It's possible to be both serious and humorous at the same time.
Re: For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations... - PeterB - 12-22-2007
[quote MacMagus]> I cannot tell if the third link is meant to be serious, or in jest -- one could argue it either way.
FYI: It's possible to be both serious and humorous at the same time.
Yes, I assumed that was a possibility. (
)
Re: For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations... - x-uri - 12-23-2007
IMO, student evals are fairly useless.
First, because the people who design them typically don't know what to ask, nor how they ought to ask for what they really need to know.
Second, because the students are not reliable reporters.
I tend to ignore the evals.
My department chair described me as a "popular instructor", but he knew that from enrollment numbers. I've never been on a tenure committee, so the only time I've seen an academic department really use evals for anything was during the firing of an incompetent instructor.
He was a disaster. He missed a lot of classes, lost an exam, and got in to loud arguments with his students. But this was all hard to document, so the department head submitted his -- uniformly negative -- evals to the dean. I don't know how much weight they carried, but the instructor lost his position.
The important statistics are things like how well your students do in subsequent classes, and how many of your students apply to grad school (for upper division classes), but these data are rarely collected and tricky to evaluate.
I find it is more useful to have peer feedback. Even when it is not part of the job requirements, I always invite colleagues and supervisors to sit in on my class.
Re: For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations... - PeterB - 12-23-2007
[quote x-uri]IMO, student evals are fairly useless.
First, because the people who design them typically don't know what to ask, nor how they ought to ask for what they really need to know.
Second, because the students are not reliable reporters.
I tend to ignore the evals.
My department chair described me as a "popular instructor", but he knew that from enrollment numbers. I've never been on a tenure committee, so the only time I've seen an academic department really use evals for anything was during the firing of an incompetent instructor.
He was a disaster. He missed a lot of classes, lost an exam, and got in to loud arguments with his students. But this was all hard to document, so the department head submitted his -- uniformly negative -- evals to the dean. I don't know how much weight they carried, but the instructor lost his position.
The important statistics are things like how well your students do in subsequent classes, and how many of your students apply to grad school (for upper division classes), but these data are rarely collected and tricky to evaluate.
I find it is more useful to have peer feedback. Even when it is not part of the job requirements, I always invite colleagues and supervisors to sit in on my class.
Wow, thank you for enunciating what I myself am quickly coming to as a conclusion.
One indicator for me -- a number of my students rate me average-to-very-high on a number of different issues, such as my knowledge of the subject matter, enthusiasm for teaching, preparedness for class, willingness to listen to students' input, etc. Yet when asked how they would rate me in comparison to other instructors, and their potential recommendation of me to other students -- some of these same students rate me very poorly. I don't understand how they can rate me highly for most everything, and yet not rate me favorably compared to other instructors, or recommend me to other students... it's pretty inconsistent.
As for some of the other things you mentioned-- I was gratified to read one student's comment that my course encouraged her (I presume it is a "her") to think about possible careers in the field... that's just great, I'd really love to know which student that was, if only so that I can find out if she follows through with this. I agree that a major factor should be how my students do in their subsequent classes-- as I've stated here before, if they come through my classroom, I make sure that if they pass the course, they know certain things which are going to be useful for them later on... things which if they didn't know, having taken my class, I would feel negligent as their instructor. I don't get high enrollments in my courses-- but I think this is because the students know that I'm "tough", that is to say, I am not an easy A, and they can take other instructors who are easier. Some students *do* get As in my classes, though... it's just that they have to have earned them.
Re: For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations... - laarree - 12-23-2007
PeterB, do your hamsters evaluate you? How do you rate? ;-)
Re: For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations... - MacMagus - 12-23-2007
> IMO, student evals are fairly useless.
Maybe they're just useless to YOU.
My grad school publishes student evaluations online with a big, obvious link on the student web portal.
It helps students decide on which classes to take.
Re: For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations... - PeterB - 12-23-2007
[quote laarree]PeterB, do your hamsters evaluate you? How do you rate? ;-)
Very well, thank you. Tatiana (my silver sable) -- mother to the recent litter -- is particularly noticeably friendly lately... seems to love to play with me. Definitely think I'll breed her to get another litter, as her current litter has definitely inherited her behavior, either genetically or through "culture", or both.
[quote MacMagus]> IMO, student evals are fairly useless.
Maybe they're just useless to YOU.
My grad school publishes student evaluations online with a big, obvious link on the student web portal.
It helps students decide on which classes to take.
... I agree, it would make a lot more sense if ours were published-- unfortunately, they aren't. My personal take is that there ought to be ones which are given, compiled, and summarized entirely by the students, and then published by them to a guide or website... so that the students could all read each others' comments. I also don't believe that the evals should be completely anonymous, as this removes the students' responsibility for making their comments-- it's not that I don't want the students to be honest, or that I really want to know who said what--, but I do think that they should make at least an attempt to be respectful and polite in what they say, and also should held responsible if they make comments which are either clearly personally motivated, or outright libelous. (Example: a student claiming on an eval that a prof said something or did something, where he/she did not... in an extreme case, for example, a student claiming that he/she was sexually harassed but making the whole thing up, etc.)
The comment about "helping students decide on which classes to take"-- well, in our case, they actually don't have much choice until they get to junior and senior year... and when they do have choice, they invariably pick the "easy" classes. So it doesn't have to do so much with the professors as it does the perception of which classes they're most likely to get an "A" in. It goes back to the issue of student consumerism. For this reason, student evals don't mean a whole lot, if a prof has an "easy" grade distribution...
Re: For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations... - x-uri - 12-23-2007
[quote MacMagus]> IMO, student evals are fairly useless.
Maybe they're just useless to YOU.
My grad school publishes student evaluations online with a big, obvious link on the student web portal.
It helps students decide on which classes to take.
Academic departments collect student evaluations as a way of tracking instructor performance.
I have never worked at a school that made the student evaluation results available to the students.
There is a website
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/
which students use to share this kind of information --- of course, there is no way to tell if the posters are actual students. And, as with all unsolicited "customer response" surveys, the results will tend to skew negative.
I wonder how often a student could use this information when "deciding which classes to take"? The course of study is set by curriculum committees, and it is rare that more than one instructor teaches a class, especially in the upper levels.
A student might choose one elective, rather than another or choose to delay taking a class, hoping that an unpopular instructor will be replaced. However, the investment of time and energy required to learn lecture material and labs well enough to teach a class is substantial. There is no incentive, either for the instructor or the department, to change up teaching assignments very frequently.
No, I don't think the evals the department collects would be of much use to students.
PeterB, it would be interesting to see a student-run evaluation system -- where measures were taken to ensure that the respondents had, in fact, been students of the rated instructor. However, the same caveats apply. It is hard to imagine that the information would help with course selection very often.
Re: For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations... - MacMagus - 12-23-2007
> I wonder how often a student could use this information when "deciding which classes to take"?
Pretty darned often.
I've used them to help me choose between different class-sections several times. Just about every student here has.
I've been in study groups where we preempted an hour to talk about which classes to take and we brought printouts of evaluations and past exams to aid the discussion.
I don't care whether a professor is tough. I mostly want him/her to be knowledgeable and engaging. I always learn more in classes where the professor can actually convey knowledge.
If a bunch of evaluations suggest that the prof was mind-numbingly boring or that he just wrote notes on the board and never answered questions or that s/he spent the first half hour of every class talking about his/her kid instead of teaching... ALARM BELLS GO OFF and I take the other section (if available) or wait to take that class in the next semester when a different prof is teaching.