If there’s a downside to another academic year coming to a successful close, it’s reading course evaluations. This post explores how we respond to those one or two low evaluations and the occasional negative comments found in answers to the open-ended questions. Do we have
Gone are the days of handing out course evaluations during the last week of class and asking students to fill them out and place them in the envelope in the front of the room. Now, students are sent an email with a link or perhaps
Can students collaborate on the feedback they provide faculty? How would that kind of input be collected? Both are legitimate questions, and both were answered by a group of marketing faculty who developed, implemented, and assessed the approach.
The first argument, supported by research cited
How well a class functions is the result of both what the teacher does and what the students do. The way we solicit course evaluation feedback reinforces students’ tendency to see the teacher as the one who’s responsible for whether it was a good class.
No matter how much we debate the issue, end-of-course evaluations count. How much they count is a matter of perspective. They matter if you care about teaching. They frustrate you when you try to figure out what they mean. They haven’t changed; they are regularly
Student course evaluations (SCEs) are now a standard feature in higher education. However, despite the effort and credence given to SCEs, in many cases students don’t seem to take them all that seriously. They have a general impression of the course and the instructor, and
It takes a certain amount of courage to talk with students about course evaluation results. I’m thinking here more about formative feedback the teacher solicits during the course, as opposed to what’s officially collected when it ends. Despite how vulnerable revealing results can make a
Shortly after 2000, higher education institutions started transitioning from paper and pencil student-rating forms to online systems. The online option has administrative efficiency and economics going for it. At this point, most course evaluations are being conducted online. Online rating systems have not only institutional
It’s that time of the year when end-of-course ratings and student comments are collected. When the feedback arrives, the quality often disappoints—and if the feedback is collected online, fewer students even bother to respond. Most of the comments are dashed off half thoughts, difficult to
I always hesitate to do posts on student ratings. Every teacher has opinions, a lot of which aren’t supported by the research. But this post is on a topic about which there is little disagreement. Students don’t take the process all that seriously, especially now
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I remember one of the last times I taught my graduate course on college teaching. It was a great class from beginning to end. I was at my best and the students were fantastic. We had these amazing discussions. I looked forward to reading their papers. Oh, it was so good, and I just knew the evaluations would reflect my brilliance. Sure enough, the first couple I looked at were straight 7s, the walks-on-water rating. The next couple were mostly 7s and a few 6s. I was right! What a class! Then a few more into the stack, there’s a bubble sheet with straight 1s, the no-redeeming-social-value rating. What? I couldn’t believe it! How could anyone be that unhappy with the course? Who was it? On the way home, I ran through the roster trying to imagine which student would dish out those paltry ratings. I discussed it at length during dinner. I laid awake in bed, still mystified, dismayed, and just a bit angry. If the student was that upset, why did I have to find out about it this way? These were graduate students, surely they knew they could come to me.
It was not until the next morning that the irony dawned on me. Two weeks earlier, in response to a colleague who was upset about a student’s comment, I had written a piece for The Teaching Professor newsletter admonishing faculty for overreacting to negative feedback. And there I was, obsessing over one negative comment in a sea of positive ones.
How do you know if you are overreacting? You’re fixated on the negative comments. There may be only three stinkers. Never mind there are 34 positive comments; it’s those three negative ones that run around in your mind on a seemingly endless track. And your thinking is colored with emotion. Feelings bubble up and around as you consider and reconsider the comments. There’s hurt, frustration, anger, confusion, dismay, doubt—not the kind of emotions that fill you with hope and joy. After a while, the rationalizations start. You’re pretty sure you know who made the comments and this is not a student who put one bit of effort into the course. Then there are these open-ended questions that essentially give students license so say whatever they will. How fair is that? What would happen if you noted on a paper that it “sucked”? And with the forms now filled out online, half the class isn’t providing feedback and those that do are likely the ones with the axes to grind. And you know how much time and thought students put into filling out the evaluations—they run through them as quickly as possible and mark the task completed.
Most of us know when we’re overreacting, the more challenging question is how do we stop? It requires concerted effort and the application of some self-discipline. Be welcome to add your suggestions to these.
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