As noted in the previous post, I don't believe that students in a course are in any position to evaluate the educational quality of the experience. They are in a position to evaluate if the faculty member followed the syllabus, was prepared for class, and returned graded assignments in a reasonable time and with evaluative comments that could aid learning. These are universal experiences for all student in the class.
Some, but not all students are in a position to report if the faculty member kept office hours or not. Since only about fifteen to twenty percent of my students ever come to see me or send e-mail with questions, I find it curious that greater than ninety five percent of the students evaluate my keeping of office hours. Can we couple this with a question as to were my office is. The results might be interesting.
The above type of questions could, and should, be asked near the end of the semester. But no evaluation should be given without one question that is missing from most student evaluations. "What grade do you think you will get in this class?"
Every time I hear or read about someone reporting that there is no correlation between student evaluations of faculty and grades I laugh. I once taught at an institution that asked some version of my question. They also used plus/minus grading. So, I took five years of grades from sections I taught. I calculated the average class expected GPA and correlated the average score students gave my on the question, "How do you rate this instructor as a teacher?" Result >98% correlation between class expected GPA and rating of me as an instructor.
But, I digress.
The questions that basically ask if the instructor can teach, or did teach are, IMO, best left until after the student has moved on to the next course or to a job. This is were the student finds out if they got the education they needed. Ask the student about the previous course instructor as they work though the next course and you will likely hear a different story then at the end of the semester.
If you ask folks in the military about their drill instructor (DI) before and after they go into combat you might find a similar effect. In the military, you can only ask the survivors, but they again, percentage of survivors is a type of evaluation in itself.
Teaching evaluations are trotted out as instruments of customer satisfaction, but in reality they facilitate lazy management practices by university administration. Evaluations submitted by students are "measures of performance" that give a numerical result. Management always loves numerical results, irrespective of the type of tea leaves that were read.
ReplyDeleteI think that if student evaluations are halted, faculty performance evaluation would fall squarely onto the shoulders of Deans. Without numeric ratings generated by someone, Deans would have to dream up another kind of measure, which I think they would rather not do. Student ratings allow Deans to cry alligator tears and blame nameless, faceless students for a faculty member's dismissal or for tenure and promotion decisions. Rather than own up to poor mentoring, a Dean and department chair can just tut-tut and do their thing with the excuse that they are just serving the "Customers".