Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

This year I am on a committee responsible for designing student evaluation forms. I have a few questions. First, how seriously do you take these forms? Do you use evaluations as revenge against teachers you don't like? Do you feel you are always capable of evaluating teachers and what they do?

Do you use Rate My Professors? If so, are you more candid on this site than on evaluation forms?

Overall, would you prefer to answer more questions or fewer?

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

There was a study done - I don't have a reference - on how people rate their teachers. They found that if they showed people a ten-second clip of a lecture with no sound, the average grade they gave the teacher was not significantly different (in a statistical sense) from the average grade the teacher got from a class that he or she had taught for an entire semester.

So I don't think teacher evaluation forms are useful on the whole. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

At least where I go to school, they are done awfully. Generic bubble-in responses given at the end of class in the last week before the final. People rush through them and stuff them in the confidential envelope. I can't see what they're gleaning that couldn't be otherwise readily apparent.

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

They are done awfully, but a suprising number of students take them seriously. I'm not sure whether the bubble responses are meaningful, but the written comments almost certainly are.

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

If they just cut it down to like 10 bubble questions (from the 50) and asked for comments it would be more useful. Sorry comments don't fit in some teacher evaluating computer, but they're the only things of interest you'll learn from these forms.

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

I'm not a student anymore but my experience was much like secretprankster.


My advice would be to keep the evaluations short. Things I would include if I were making a form -

1. Did the teacher speak loudly and clearly?
2. Did this teacher take time to explain concepts and was he/she willing to take time to answer questions?
3. Did the tests reflect the material taught in class?

And I agree with Scary Tiger and Kimbell. Comments are more meaningful.

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

It doesn't matter how you design the forms if everybody knows they are meaningless. In most schools almost nothing is done about bad feedback. If your evaluations are actually meaningful make sure thats explained when the forms are distributed. If they're not, just give a piece of paper with a smiley face-minus the smile. Have the students finish the face with a smile if they like the teacher, a frown if they didn't and anything in between.

It'll be just as useful.

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

The evaluations i get for my profs is pretty extensive, at least to me. People take up to 10 mins to fill them up.

I just put down the same ranking for each category based on the teacher. So if i think they are awesome i will give them 5's across the board.

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

[ QUOTE ]
If they just cut it down to like 10 bubble questions (from the 50) and asked for comments it would be more useful. Sorry comments don't fit in some teacher evaluating computer, but they're the only things of interest you'll learn from these forms.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is exactly correct. I'm currently in my junior year, and I've done plenty of these already. They do have a space for comments, but only after pushing through 40-50 multiple choice questions. The folks here seem to use generic forms for all of the classes, so a lot of the questions asked aren't even appropriate: I've been asked many times whether a class has increased my understanding of other people, and I'm a math major taking mostly math courses.

Nonetheless, I do take them mostly seriously, more so with each semester. It would be a lot better if a professor passed these out at the beginning of the last class instead of the end. The way it's done now everyone tries to fly through it just so they can get out.

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

I've always taken my evaluations seriously (the ones that I have written). I agree that the generic response bubbles can be a bit long and when students look at a list of 20+ bubbles, they are sometimes just going to start filling them in without looking. I think that ideally the majority of this stuff should be done through comments.


Not really sure if angry students will write negative stuff because of their grade. However, if this is a suspected problem, possibly consider moving the evaluations to the middle of the semester instead of towards the end. Students will already have formed an impression of their professor and their grade will still be much more in the air.

Also consider not forcing students to fill these out at the end of class. My University does them online and are optional. I would suspect that this improves the quality of responses.

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

I've taught college classes for several semesters now, and I get to see the student evaluation forms after the semester is over.

Ours have two parts: a bubble section, and a "write things" section. I would say that only about 25% of students actually write things in the "write things" section, but for those that do, I think their comments can be pretty helpful.

As for the bubble sections, you obviously can't tell if they took it seriously or not, but in my experience, the faculty's opinions of who the best instructors are tends to agree with the students' opinions, so enough people take it seriously to have an effect over the "noise."

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

at my college, the eval is like a 2 second bubble thing that noone takes seriously.

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

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Do you use Rate My Professors? If so, are you more candid on this site than on evaluation forms?

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John,

I've only looked at ratemyprofessors.com twice. Do professors in general care about this site?

~ Rick

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

Rick,

For the most part, not really.

Still, though, I like the idea that the opinions are unsolicited and anonymous--although I can guess at some students who wrote some of mine. Some research also shows a strong correlation between this site and and other forms of student evaluation. I think that students who rate me as being easy probably did well in the course. And keep in mind, they don't have access to other grades, so one student's "A" may be the only one in the class.

It's also interesting to check the ratings of top professors, the real stars in their fields, and read comments about them.

John

Re: Students Evaluating Teachers (For College Students)
 

John,

I take the evaluations seriously only if the teacher was exceptionally great or exceptionally bad. For the great teachers, I let them know the things that I enjoyed and what made the class really click for me. For the bad teachers, I use what I deem constructive criticism (and I assume that they, in turn, ignore it entirely). I know a lot of people who just write mean stuff, but I don't see how that helps the professors.

If it is a teacher that was just okay or didn't really affect the content of the class for me, I just do the bubble things without leaving extra comments.

My basic recommendation is to show that the evals mean a lot to you and that you are going to take them seriously; that is the best way to got a few extra students to take them seriously.