Tricks for Boosting Student Evaluations

An instructor up for tenure projected a picture of his wife and child on a large screen while the evaluations were being written.

Let’s see: 1) announcing that the final exam will be given before exam week, giving students (and, not incidentally, faculty) exam week off, 2) announcing a curve favorable to grade inflation, 3) carrying the evaluations around for the final two weeks of classes, awaiting a favorable attendance pattern to administer the forms, 4) shifting the final exam to a take-home format, 5) agreeing to drop the lowest exam or quiz grade.

I have attended two major universities — long ago, the late 1950′s through 1971 — and at no time, whether in undergraduate classes or in graduate classes, did any professor lay before me a sheet of paper on which I was supposed to “evaluate” that professor. I held most of my professors in high esteem, and I did not feel in the least deprived for not being handed an opportunity to “evaluate” any of them.I don’t know where the pernicious notion arose, that students were somehow qualified to “evaluate” degreed professors. The article implies the obvious, namely that “evaluations” are essentially a “feel-good” way for students to get back at professors who demanded from them a student performance at the real university level. That’s what a professor is supposed to do anyway. “Evaluations” are a way of corrupting faculty into compromising academic standards for the sake of supposedly more favorable “evaluations”. I can hear it now: “Just put up a cute Power Point presentation, and your high rating on the ‘evaluations’ is assured!” — Retired Prof

Receiving feedback as a means of improving the practice of a process is surely the opposite of “pernicious.” Most degreed professors are perfectly capable of interpreting the comments of students in useful ways to self-reflect and improve their own teaching.

8 and 9, that works for tenured profs who are the primary audience for the evals. But when the faculty is adjunct, and the primary audience of the evals is the dean who will decide which among a glut of available adjuncts will be offered employment the next semester, well…

To eacowan: My experience was much the same as yours. I could not agree more.

Lathering them with false, but well performed, praise about their intellectual merit (“you’re smarter than most of my colleagues!”) and giving them A’s on most everything (it’s good, I’m told, to give an A- here and there, as part of the performance of objectivity). This makes me laugh, since it’s advice from our award winning, best teachers. They don’t usually like the quality of my laugh, however, or maybe it’s just any laughing they don’t like? But, as they say, they laugh all the way to the bank, but I don’t know what metaphorical bank they mean.

My students always think I grade too hard. The results of my department grading reviews have always indicated that I grade too easy. Maybe that means I’m grading about right?

I had a professor stop shouting at the students during the week of evaluations.

No. 5 & 8: In 39 years of teaching, I can’t tell you how many times I have tried that approach (“learning” from last term’s evaluations), and have found that classes, like all human populations, are fickle. What one year’s class demands, the next year’s class will not tolerate. A test that one year’s class thinks is too hard, next year’s class will scorn as ‘way too easy (and therefore I’m not challenging their minds). In sum, I agree with eacowan 100%.

I had a professor use an ingenious method: he gave us two evaluations. Step One: He first explained that the feedback on the official form was not as helpful as he wanted, and also took several months to receive (no time to implement any critical feedback before the next term). He also told us that the official form was the one that determined things like salary and tenure.Step Two: He then gave us an unofficial form (simpler and more subjective) that we were to complete honestly and anonymously, and we were to give it to him that very day.Step Three: After we had written our comments about his teaching (and gotten any need to vent out of our system), he gave us the official form to complete, seal, and send to the department.This all appeared like he really wanted feedback from us, and was trying to go around the official system to get it. But what he was actually doing was allowing us to exhaust any strongly critical feelings with the first form… and so when we completed the official form, we were MUCH easier on him.

Oh, one more thing: The students do NOT turn in their checklist. It is for their reflection only.

I mention only because it was so ineffectual: trying to do the best job teaching the material that I could, considering that it was a departmental requirement (believe me, the level of enthusiasm for learning FORTRAN was not at its high-water mark in 1987), announcing tests well in advance, giving practice and graded assignments, and providing opportunities for extra credit. Most of the students got through the material all right; the foreign students and the deaf student did fine, including the extra-credit assignment that they didn’t need anyway; a handful of students tried autopilot and found out it didn’t work. No wonder they nailed me.

I use chocolate — when I hand out evaluations I circulate a big bag of chocolates. It’s actually cost effective if you keep an eye out for Halloween/Easter candy sales for fall/spring semsters. All that being said, the fact that student evaluations (the system) can be “gamed” or influenced by chocolate, dognuts, or other favors renders the entire system of student evaluations useless. Consider the other side of the equation: it’s extraordinarily difficult to have high expectations and receive “above average” evaluations. This seems to contradict the purpose of evaluations — i.e. demanding classes and high expectations lead to lower teaching evaluations. That makes no sense to me.

owliebehnI’ve had the same thoughts. If evaluations of faculty are done anonymously and based on unclear, arbitrary grounds, why not grade students that way? Then we’ll start with faculty evaluations of the dean and president each year. If the dean and president get numbers above some arbitrary level, they keep their jobs.The problem with anonymous faculty evaluation of the students is that the faculty members are actually experts in the field. That would be damaging to the process. What we need is for the students to take essay exams that are graded by faculty members from outside the field. Music faculty grade physics exams, computer science profs grade history exams, etc. It wouldn’t be a perfect system, but as all faculty members have taken a lot of classes, they should be qualified to provide feedback about student performance. Some numbers are better than none.

And one more thing: They shouldn’t be called “evaluations,” but “customer satisfaction surveys.” Sheeesh.

Some faculty fill out the student survey forms themselves or have T.A.s do it. If the professor has to exit the classroom, leaving a student in charge of distributing, collecting, and submitting the forms, there’s opportunities aplenty to change the results. Or “stooge” students and favorites can urge classmates to give high ratings by commenting during the evaluation about what a great prof., s/he’ll grade easy, or if we give him/her bad ratings, the prof will be fired, enhancing student sympathy.The same deceptive tactics can work on the online student “RateyourProf” websites, where professor and cronies can submit laudatory ratings.

I meant NOW moved to electronic evals… sigh…

What a great comment by the retired professor!!! Evaluations are a good source for self improvement; however, if you have to resource to bribe students in exchange of good evaluations, I find that pathetic! It is unfortunate that today’s generation does not always value hard work. They expect good grades for nothing! Excellent teachers but demanding usually do not get good students evaluations…That is SAD!!! and Pathetic!

Evaluations of my teaching could be important, however, in the past ten years I have received so many comments from students that are rarely constructive. Most of the time, the feedback is just odd, irrelevant or completely contradictory. For example, I sometimes get feedback about my clothes or shoes (which are truly NOT noteworthy; simple basic colored skirts and tops with black flats), or comments about how I don’t respond to email within 24hrs, or comments like, “I shouldn’t have to take research methods. It’s not important to me no matter what my professor says.” What does that have to do with me, I didn’t create their degree plans? Finally, I consistently get a number of students saying that I am the best professor they’ve ever had and an equal number of students in that SAME class saying that I am the worst professor they’ve ever had. It pains me to know that administrators are taking these evaluations seriously when it comes time to evaluate me for promotions. In addition, I heard about this article when AN ADMINISTRATOR at my university sent a mass email asking how we can ALL improve our student evaluations because we are approaching another SACS review. So essentially, they don’t care about my actual performance, they want to see how creative I can be in coercing my students into SAYING I’m a good professor even if I’m not. I think that’s disgraceful.

It’s useful feedback if you ask the right questions. Of course, you have to ignore the chaff – the students who are griping because they didn’t get a good grade. And, it is pathetic if you have to hand out candy, or dinners, or pictures of your children, or wait until the bad students are not showing up, etc., to fill out the evaluation. And, it is also pathetic that the administration of your academic unit would take average “customer satisfaction” ratings seriously, when the “customers” are being given a grade.All that having been said, one of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from a TA in my department, who got spectacular ratings and yet handed out plenty of poor grades. He said, “I try to make every student feel like I care about him or her, and about his or her future. When we converse in class, I try to make sure my attention is gently but entirely focused on that student. When they come to see me, I treat their presence in my office as if it is the most important thing I have to do that day. When I lecture, I try to give them an opportunity to respond so that I can see how well they are understanding things, and then respond to their misunderstandings in as kindly a manner as possible. In other words, I want them to know I am on their side; the lecture isn’t about me, it’s about them and their understanding of the material. Grades are about helping them to understand where they stand relative to their peers – but I am still on their side.” I don’t know that I’ve entirely conveyed what is was like to talk with this guy, but he was always calm and and always listened carefully to whatever you were saying, always focused on you, and had a way of drawing you out. It’s not a trick – it’s genuine compassion and concern for others.

I think this depends on the kind of school where one teaches. At my nonselective SLAC, we had many students who signed up for musical ensembles for the sole purpose of continuing and duplicating the level of performance they had in high school. The best way to get good evaluations was, sadly, to dumb down the repertoire to the point where no one was challenged, and everyone went home feeling good about himself.

So many great threads on here, it’s hard to know where to begin. But I do appreciate the dialogue, it’s definitely gotten me fired up.I think students are very well qualified to rate professors. In one respect they are the most important raters. They are the whole reason we teach, or at least I thought that was the idea of being a professor… was I wrong? Research versus teaching? The existence of the word “versus” in that familiar phrase speaks volumes about the dysfunctionality of many universities. These are NOT separable pursuits, nor should they be. Each informs the other in essential ways: even if you are the most die-hard, closed-off, research-based professor on the planet, you will still get SOMETHING out of your interaction with students.The most important thing teachers (of any kind, thinking as broadly as possible) can do is to inspire the next generation of knowledge-seekers. Maybe they won’t follow in our discipline, but instilling an overall craving for new ideas is vastly more important than any specific area of expertise or interest. This is why on the list of “What does it mean to be a good teacher?”, where “Content Knowledge” often rates highly on many people’s lists, on mine it’s at the absolute bottom. Why? If you are an effective teacher, you are also an effective coach/facilitator/mentor/friend, and it’s really not important what you know about a given area. Especially as we can so easily look up so much knowledge—what has been considered “important to know” in the past—should we choose to. The Information Age has (thankfully) demoted factual, procedural, and much other low- and mid-level knowledge to the bottom, where it belongs (and can always be referenced as needed). Our minds must do more creative things, and teachers who promote these new ways of knowing should be celebrated. Those that insist upon the old will be extinct soon enough… again, thankfully.The most memorable influences on our minds aren’t the ones who know the most. They’re the ones who got us “pumped up”. And this is why being a “degreed professor” doesn’t mean a thing about being able to teach well. I don’t care if you’ve taken all the content courses in the world, or have taught for 40 years… you can still be ineffective at motivating student minds. And conversely, you could have flunked out of your academics and not know squat about the content, but still have the characteristics to be an incredible instructor… and if you do, I would rather have you as a professor (whether enrolled as a student, or hiring you as a department chair) than the first option. Really, if you’re that good at all the other parts, you could look up the “lesson plan content” in the 10 minutes before class, and give the most amazing “learning performance” one could imagine.Think about being a parent, or an older sibling, who someone else looks up to for learning about the situation at hand, whatever it is… they’re looking to you for guidance, and you don’t know the first thing about it either? What do you do? You question, you challenge, you wonder, and you encourage them to discover the answers right alongside you. Do they care that you didn’t know all the answers already? Not at all… and this works in any learning environment. It can release a perception of an imbalance of knowledge, which stifles both sides.The most important facet of “teaching” is to motivate, to give that sense of wonder, and to inspire minds to seek out what THEY find interesting. Is content important? Yes, but not necessarily for pedagogy. It’s highly important for furthering “research” in that area, of course. And the “experts” in that area do further the studies in important ways. But we don’t need to teach the same way we present at a research conference, and most of the time, we shouldn’t.Of course students won’t always give objective, thoughtful, helpful ratings. Of course not all of them are as qualified as others are to give ratings. But flip that for a moment and apply it to the instructor, and the same concerns are there. Professors vary widely in their ability to fairly/effectively/rationally/empathetically evaluate their students as well. Grading systems can be as inconsistent and ineffective as evaluation systems. Sure there are all kinds of problems with this entire scenario, and I for one think it’s “too little, too late” in most cases (one evaluation given at the end, when students just want to get the class done). Using the “motivational elements” described on this thread (bribes, heart-string-pulling, etc.) are ridiculous and sad, given that we actually care about “teaching” as outlined above. If students respect your efforts, they will say so.Bottom line: there are all kinds of things wrong with most systems of student evaluation, but there are all kinds of benefits there too. Take what you want from the process, and if there’s not enough for you, gather your own. If you really don’t care what they think, realize that you’re probably not as good of a teacher as you think either, and if you don’t care about THAT, maybe you should stop doing your students a disservice and get out of the profession. Lastly, realize that your specialty is just another item in their cafeteria-line of learning. Most of them care far less about your area of interest than you do, and they have perfectly good reasons why—just as you have perfectly good reasons why you think it’s so great. Treat them as if you were a trusted older sibling, the president of their chess club, the captain of their football team, or anyone else who they generally will look to for guidance *in your areas of expertise*. But most of all, inspire them to love learning, so they can become more fully what they want to be. You’ll get the most out of it that way too.

#6 Eacowan–Dead on. Thank you.

My very first semester teaching in the state system I got back my evals. Students were allowed to write comments on the back of the scan sheet. The first one I turned over said “I love her dry sense of humor!”. The second one said “She’s a sarcastic bitch!” Can’t please everyone.