Course evaluations are a valuable tool in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a professor’s teaching style. However, student responses should not be meant to fully define a faculty member’s performance, but rather act as a suggestive factor in seeking areas for improvement.

When filling out end-of-semester evaluations, students may allow their emotions to influence feedback responses as the course comes to an end and they have a general idea of what their final grade will be. It is for this reason that faculty must use their professional judgment when reviewing evaluations and view student evaluations as solely a supplemental resource to take into consideration when reflecting on the past semester.

As noted by some professors at Syracuse University, student satisfaction with their courses can be influenced by their individual satisfaction with their grades, opening up the possibility for distorted evaluations on behalf of students, which ultimately skews their value to professors.

And while professors can do all they can to avoid these types poor evaluations by asking only for concise, short-answer responses and allowing time for in-class course evaluations, faculty members must know when student responses carry thoughtful weight and when they are the result of emotions or laziness.

Professors can effectively put this judgment into practice by using course evaluations to seek out trends among student responses. If specific answers are received from a range of students, the suggestion should be taken into strong consideration to tweak their course or manner of teaching accordingly for future semesters.

But this can only be achieved if a number of students contribute to the course evaluation process.

To ensure that clear trends between a number of students can be picked up on, all SU academic departments’ course evaluations should be accessible online. While some evaluations should still be offered on paper and should not be made exclusively online, making way for universal electronic course evaluations across departments is a greater reach toward rounded student feedback, making up for students that may be absent from in-class evaluation time slots.

Evaluations are an important outlet for student expression. But it should be understood that course evaluations are not the be-all, end-all for faculty members when measuring the success of a course.

Published on December 8, 2015 at 12:38 am

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