Student Evaluations

Introduction: Conducted: Qualtrics Survey Fall 2011 o Sample Size: 642 o FT Tenured: 158, FT Untenured: 59 o Adjunct: 190 o Students: 218 Purpose: Gain constructive feedback to improve evaluations. Who Uses the Evaluations? o Students: To make registration decisions. o Teaching Faculty: To gain feedback and make suitable changes to the course/instruction. o Department Chairs: Gain feedback and help instructors with professional development o Administrators: Use them as supplementary materials in hiring, tenure and promotion decisions.

Findings: Students: o Most of the student population is unaware of the resource and where to find it. o Students find the results hard to understand. o Written comments are more useful than numerical data. o Reliability of the results? Most instructors receive favorable ratings. Most students do not complete the form seriously because they believe that the college does not take it seriously. o The information provided is not what the students are looking for. Revisions to the questions are suggested

Members of the teaching faculty believe: o They do not gain valuable feedback from the numerical data. Scores are usually 4-5 Written comments are more useful. o The results to them should be available sooner o Student interest is low. (elaborate it with data) o Current evaluations are inadequate for admin purposes. Results are generally in the same range. Difficult to compare scores.

Dep’t. Chairs and Admins believe: o The evaluation is a useful instrument, but inadequate by itself. (Supplemented with peer evaluations etc.) o Current scale is less reliable. Scores are usually 4-5 o Dep’t. Chairs as well as instructors do not gain necessary feedback to improve pedagogy. o Written comments are more useful than numerical data. o Questions do not provide feedback about the curriculum. o (research this again) o Inclusion of an overall rating/ summary can also be helpful.

Recommendations How can we make the evaluations more useful to students? Revise the scale, 4 point instead of 5. Faculty and Students both suggested that we revise the current questions. o Include straightforward questions about: Fairness Learning o Need to address areas such as: Instructor’s ability to communicate (Q 2,7) Appropriate level of difficulty Nature of the assignments, examinations, papers. Instructor’s helpfulness (Q 8,9) o Evaluation results should be available at the time of registration. Link provided along with the appointment time. o Results need to better publicized & easy to find. Cont’d

Recommendations (Cont’d) Written Comments: Faculty and students both indicated that written comments are a lot more informative than numerical data (as currently presented). o Students: should be allowed to view written comments. should have the option of expressing their opinions about the course to other students. (why ratemyprofessors.com is popular) o Faculty: Senior FT opposed to making written comments available to students. Untenured and Adjuncts less opposed.

Recommendations (Cont’d) How to make the evaluations more useful to instructors? Faculty and students both suggested that the current questions be revised. o Provide better feedback about the coursework. o More specific about instructor’s quality of teaching. Suggestion: Include questions that will guide students towards writing more useful comments.

Prompts for Written Comments Baruch’s written comments section is vague. Recommendations to Include specific questions were made. o It will prompt the students to write more feedback. o Instructors can also be given an option of customizing the questions to gain feedback. A separate question which is shared with the entire school community will also prove helpful.

Prompts for Written Comments Sample Questions: Source: Brooklyn College Apart from the instructor, what are the strengths of the course? How can the course be improved? Apart from te course, what are the strengths of the instructor? How can the instructor’s teaching be improved?

Prompts for Written Comments An additional question: What would you like to tell others about the course? Shared with everyone in the Baruch Community.

Recommendations (Cont’d) o Administer Mid-Term Evaluations. optional and available only to the instructor. o The evaluation results should be timely processed. enough time to make changes for the following term

Recommendations How to make the evaluations more useful to Dep’t. Chairs and Administrators? Faculty criticisms: o Questions do not effectively measure instructional quality. o Evaluations do not provide the dep’t. chairs and the instructors an opportunity to learn about specific shortcomings. Written Comments are more suitable, having access to comments will prove to be more useful. The full-time teaching faculty suggested: o The current rating format/scale needs to be revised, data seems statistically unreliable. o The form is inadequate because it does not provide enough details about the instructor. Cont’d

Recommendations (Cont’d) Part-time faculty members: o Expressed concerns about instructors diluting grades and lowering class difficulty levels in order to gain a favorable evaluation. o Suggested that the college should examine the relationship between grading practices and evaluation scores. Students suggested: o Take the evaluations seriously! o Make written comments available at least to the dept. chairs and admins.  FT tenured strongly opposed that idea.  FT untenured and adjuncts supported having the written comments available to the dept. chairs.  Expressed moderate views about having comments available to admins.

Presentation of Data Baruch:

Presentation of Data There are no departmental comparisons Difficult to read Difficult to navigate Improve the overall user interface.

Presentation of Data Brooklyn: Individual vs. Dep’t.

Presentation of Data Brooklyn: Individual