Student Evaluations

1. Student Evaluations

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

3. Findings: Students: • Most of the student population is unaware of the resource and where to find it. • Students find the results hard to understand. • Written comments are more useful than numerical data. • 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. • The information provided is not what the students are looking for. • Revisions to the questions are suggested

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

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

6. 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. • Include straightforward questions about: • Fairness • Learning • 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) • Evaluation results should be available at the time of registration. • Link provided along with the appointment time. • Results need to better publicized & easy to find. Cont’d

7. Recommendations (Cont’d) Written Comments: • Faculty and students both indicated that written comments are a lot more informative than numerical data (as currently presented). • 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) • Faculty: • Senior FT opposed to making written comments available to students. • Untenured and Adjuncts less opposed.

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

9. Prompts for Written Comments • Baruch’s written comments section is vague. • Recommendations to Include specific questions were made. • It will prompt the students to write more feedback. • 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.

10. 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?

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

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

13. Recommendations How to make the evaluations more useful to Dep’t. Chairs and Administrators? • Faculty criticisms: • Questions do not effectively measure instructional quality. • 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: • The current rating format/scale needs to be revised, data seems statistically unreliable. • The form is inadequate because it does not provide enough details about the instructor. Cont’d

14. Recommendations (Cont’d) Part-time faculty members: • Expressed concerns about instructors diluting grades and lowering class difficulty levels in order to gain a favorable evaluation. • Suggested that the college should examine the relationship between grading practices and evaluation scores. Students suggested: • Take the evaluations seriously! • 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.

15. Presentation of Data Baruch:

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

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

18. Presentation of Data • Brooklyn: Individual