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Re: [Phys-L] Student Evaluations of Teaching Are Not Valid Gauges of Teaching Performance - Yet Again!



[crossposted to ChemEd-L]

On 6/24/2012 12:43 PM, Richard Hake wrote:
Some subscribers to Phys-L might be interested in a recent
discussion-list post "Student Evaluations of Teaching Are Not Valid
Gauges of Teaching Performance - Yet Again!"

These findings are hardly surprising to me.

The questions in the student evaluations in the paper referenced
(translated from the original Italian) were:

Overall teaching quality: On a scale 0 to 10, provide your
overall evaluation of the course you attended in terms of
quality of the teaching.

Clarity of the lectures: On a scale 1 to 5, where 1 means
complete disagreement and 5 complete agreement, indicate to
what extent you agree with the following statement: the
speech and the language of the teacher during the lectures
are clear and easily understandable.

Ability in generating interest for the subject: On a scale 0 to
10, provide your overall evaluation about the teacher’s
ability in generating interest for the subject

Logistics of the course: On a scale 1 to 5, where 1 means
complete disagreement and 5 complete agreement, indicate to
what extent you agree with the following statement: the
course has been carried out coherently with the objectives,
the content and the schedule that were communicated to us at
the beginning of the course by the teacher.

Workload of the course: On a scale 1 to 5, where 1 means
complete disagreement and 5 complete agreement, indicate to
what extent you agree with the following statement: the
amount of study materials required for the preparation of
the exam has been realistically adequate to the objective of
learning and sitting the exams of all courses of the term.

To me, these questions seem to invite the kinds of responses the article
descirbes. Most students don't have the perspective to evaluate
teaching objectively, so given a broad set of questions, they'll default
to the assumption that if they got a good grade, the professor must have
done a good job.

I think if the questions were much more specific, the students might
have been able to give more objective input. The questions I use when I
have my (high school) students evaluate me are to rate me from 1 to 5
where:

1 = not acceptable
2 = below average
3 = about average
4 = above average
5 = outstanding

in the following areas:

presentation/teaching of material

learning objectives are clear

I am able to achieve the learning objectives

explanations are clear

subject is well organized

enough homework to be well-prepared for tests

I am able to do the homework

homework is relevant to each topic

amount of material covered on each test

my test grades are consistent with what I expect

tests are based on the classwork

grading criteria are clear & fair

homework & tests graded in a timely fashion

pace of course

classroom management

teacher's availability

teacher's approachability

teacher's flexibility

teacher's fairness

teacher's enthusiasm

teacher contributes to my learning

teacher cares about how well I'm doing

I find that the aggregated responses I get from these questions seem to
match pretty well with administrators' evaluations of my teaching, as
well as my own perceptions of my strengths and weaknesses.
--
Jeff Bigler
Lynn English HS; Lynn, MA, USA
"Magic" is what we call Science before we understand it.