Re: Are student evaluations useful?

["Rauber, Joel Phys" <RAUBERJ@mg.sdstate.edu>]

> Oh come now, Joel!  It's a cute story--and it *does* suit my mood right
> now for reasons we needn't go into--but you don't *really* believe that;
> do you?

Oddly enough, I more or less do believe it; (fully realizing that there is a 
lot subjective interpretation here).  The actual question on the survey 
reads "The instructor encouraged me to think for myself", I looked it up. 
 The phenomena appears most pronounced in our Algebra based course that is 
populated mostly by non-physical science majors (i.e. non: chemistry, 
physics and engineering students); (i.e. filled with biology, nursing, some 
2-year technical degree folks and a smattering of others).

These students really really really want the course to be as "cookie cutter" 
as possible and deviations from that elicits much complaining.  My 
colleagues in coffee room chatter agree with the interpretation, but that 
may be "instructor sour grapes" or group therapy griping, because it suits 
our moods at various moments.

Perhaps it is some bit of hyperbole to interpret the results as the students 
view being "encouraged to think" as bad teaching; but I don't think its 
hyperbole to interpret their view as its being "bothersome teaching" and 
something they don't want in this course.

Joel


Anecdote is below:
> > The form we used several years ago had a question along the lines of: " 
My
> > instructor made me think".  They had to rate each question 1-5, 1 meaning 

> > agree most strongly with the statement.
> >
> > One instructor in our department, who usually gets worse than average
> > evaluations and who also has higher than average standards in his 
classes,
> > would always be rated quite well on this question (near 1) compared to 
the
> > other questions.  I had noticed similar phenomena in my own evaluations.
> >
> > My interpretation is that in the student's mind it was *bad* teaching if
the
> > instructor made them think, they didn't like this guy so they rated him 
bad
> > everywhere; little realizing that they were accidently rating the
instructor
> > well for this question!