Reading Your Teaching Evaluations

Eileen Herteis, PCTC

Some professors may hesitate to read the results of their teaching evaluations and
worst of allwhen they do read them, may be more focused on the negative
feedback than on the positive. Sometimes this hesitation or focus on the negative
manifests itself in a general skepticism about the value and reliability of student
evaluations of teaching.
Lets deal with the reliability issue up front. The educational literature and logic tell
us thatas long as they are asked to comment on things they are qualified to
evaluatestudents provide valuable feedback. For example, students can be
expected to comment reliably on what has and hasn't helped them to learn;
however, they are likely not qualified to judge whether a professor has incorporated
the latest findings from the field into her lectures. So, though the literature agrees
that students are reliable judges of teaching, there are a number of components of
effective teaching that only peers are fully qualified to evaluate, including:
- The appropriateness of an instructor's objectives
- The instructor's knowledge of the subject matter
- The degree to which instructional processes or materials are relevant to objectives
- The quality and appropriateness of assessment methods
- The appropriateness of grading standards
- The instructor's support for department teaching efforts such as curriculum
development
- The instructor's contribution to a department climate that values teaching
The new Standard Mount Allison Evaluation Form focuses on a) aspects of effective
teaching about which students can provide helpful feedback and b) providing
information which professors can use to plan, assess, and modify their teaching next
time they teach the course.
What Do the Numbers Tell You?
How students respond to the numerically-scored questions will, to a large extent,
help you determine their overall satisfaction with a course or the teaching. If
approval is high, students are comfortable with the learning environment that youve
created. On the other hand, responses near the lower end of the scale provide an
opportunity for you to examine, change, or develop your teaching. In this case, look
closely at students ratings of specific items and for any clues that might be
contained in their written responses to the two open-ended questions.
In interpreting numerical results, dont treat a small difference as significant;
decimal places give a seductive but false sense of accuracy and precision. There is
little meaningful difference between a 4.65 and a 4.7; yet a professor who routinely
over time receives 4.65 for overall satisfaction can be genuinely pleased with that
sustained pattern. Lets look at some specific examples.
Student Comments

Organization
If responses suggest that the organization could be strengthened or that the
objectives of the course were unclear, you can try several strategies, starting with
the course outline.
Does the course outline:
State the aims and learning outcomes for the course in understandable language;
that is, does it list the skills, knowledge and values students will acquire as a result
of taking the course?
Link the assignments, tests, and exams clearly to the learning outcomes?
List the assessment criteria and relate them to the learning outcomes?
Explain how the course relates to others (in your discipline and, if relevant, to
professional practice in the field)?
Provide a clear schedule for topics, activities, assignments and tests?
Describe the teaching and learning strategies used in your course and why you
have chosen them?
You might also try the following:
Discussing the course outline and assessment requirements with students at the
first class.
Emphasizing the links between lectures, labs, and tutorials, etc
Using Moodle to give students access online to practice quizzes and answers,
frequently asked questions, and so on.
Reminding students frequently throughout the course that being organized is also
their responsibility.
Clarity
If responses suggest that explanations of ideas, concepts, and expectations could
be clearer, try the following:
Re-examine the way lectures, tutorials, and labs are structured and scheduled.
Reconsider the amount of material you are attempting to cover in each class: are
you racing through too much, too quickly? What could you cut from the content, or
at least shift so that it becomes the students responsibility to learn itrather than
your responsibility to teach it?
Begin each class with a clear overview of what is to be done during the session and
the intended learning outcomes (Even a quick roadmap on the board works well to
achieve this, and you can check off the points as you complete them).
End each class with a summary of the main points.
Try doing a One-Minute Paper at the end of class, asking the students to list the
3 things they learned from the days class or the three questions that remain
uppermost in their minds.
Post background material, individual lesson outlines or semi-notes on Moodle.
Enliven your explanations by using references to the current news, real-life
examples and scenarios, diagrams, or pictures (even youtube clips).
Check periodically with students to make sure that you are not going too fast and
that they can see and hear what is being said.
Encourage students to enhance their understanding by asking them to find the
links among a) the various concepts and topics in your course and b) their learning
in your course and what they learn in other courses.

Interest and Learning

If responses suggest that student interest in the subject has not been challenged or
stimulated consider:
Introducing more challenging or realistic problems and dilemmas.
Using different strategies to include, for example, problem-solving, discussion of
open-ended questions, concept maps to link ideas, peer-assessment of assignments,
etc.
Encouraging students to apply information to real-life situations, local, regional, or
internationalthat is, integrating theory and practice.
Taking learning beyond the typical classroom: field trips, poster displays, a miniconference, an exhibition of student work.
Asking students to keep a journal in which they document their learning.
Allowing some choice in fulfilling assignments so that students can select and focus
on topics that interest them.
Stressing understanding rather than simply memorization.
Encouraging students to take responsibility for their learning and resisting the
temptation to spoon-feed.
Encouraging students to develop and to express their own ideas and opinions,
perhaps through more class discussion or less emphasis on testing purely factual
material.
Setting high standard and sticking to them.
Participation and Interaction
If the feedback suggests that students wanted more opportunities to participate
during class:
Use questions to promote discussion and to provoke debate.
Ask students to illustrate concepts and to apply theory to practice by
providing their own examples, both individually and in groups.
Replace some classes with tutorials or small-group discussions.
Use case studies, simulations, and role-plays to generate participation.
Provide opportunities for students to acquire hands-on experience.
Plan activities that require students to work as a group or team.
Assignments or Feedback
If tests or the feedback you give on assignments is an issue, you could:
Ask students what kind of feedback they would find most useful: rubrics,
checklists, details for improvement.
Attach a checklist or rubric to the graded work to help students understand their
grades (this also reduces your marking time).
Link feedback to the assessment criteria and learning outcomes so students see
what they have done well and what they need to improve.
Change the schedule of assessments, moving larger projects away from end of
term when students have less time to do them and you have less time to mark
them.
Have more assessments: reduce large assignments into smaller components to
provide students with more frequent feedback.
Provide model answers or examples of work assessed according to the criteria
As an in-class exercise, have students assess good and weak answers using the
criteria.

 Ensure that feedback is provided promptly and in time to be useful; is constructive

and indicates ways in which the student can improve.
What else can you do?
You could:
Note the feedback but decide not to act upon it because you have perfectly sound
pedagogical or disciplinary reasons for continuing to do things the same way.
Acquire more informationfor example, use what youve learned from the
evaluations to construct a mid-term, Hows it going so far? questionnaire that will
help you gather student feedback earlier next term.
Do nothing yetfor example, when insufficient information is provided or when
feedback is contradictory.
Benefitting from Student Evaluations of Your Teaching
The best way to use evaluation data (numerical scores and written comments) is to
gather feedback over a number of terms, looking at patterns in responses from a
number of courses over time (at least 5 courses, some sources sayeven more if
the class size is small).
Are the comments consistent or variable? Recurring comments may help you identify
a potential change; comments that range from very positive to very negative may
say more about students' expectations of the course, their backgrounds, or their
intellectual development or preferred learning styles. If there are contradictions in a
particular item, track it; see what the students say next time you teach the
course.
How many comments are just plain rudemore a reflection of the students incivility
than your teaching practice? These can reflect pressures students feel and their
dissatisfaction with a broad range of issues, far beyond your teaching.
The Teaching Centre at Princeton University cautions that rather than being solely
judgments of teaching performance, student evaluations are more meaningful when
also seen as reflecting the spectrum of ways that students as novices learn and
think within our disciplines.
How to deal with negative comments?
It is not surprising that even the very best teachers receive negative comments from
students once in a while. In fact, there would be no challenge, no reason to try new
things, experiment, or engage with our teaching if we pleased everyone! Yet
sometimes teachers become obsessed with the negative comments and rather than
seeing them as a springboard to getting even better evaluations next time, an
opportunity to be in control, they become discouraged. The same scholar who
gamely edits and resubmits an article for publication again and again, becomes
distraught when 5 out of 50 students rate him as unsatisfactory. Ninety percent of
the students in class think he's good, even excellent, yet he is upset by the five
others . . . .
Admittedly, in most cases, the students written comments, rather than the

numerical responses, incite such a visceral reaction. Regardless, it is essential that

you put negative feedback into context. How many of the comments relate to your
teaching and things you can alter (for example, volume of speaking) and how many
are course-related items over which you have little or no influence (the classroom,
the class time)? Do patterns emerge when you read what students listed as
weaknesses of the course? These may be areas that you want to think about further.
Use a teaching portfolio to contextualize negative comments, especially if you are
a candidate for tenure and promotion or for a new job. Explain any circumstances
that may have affected your evaluations. For example, research shows that faculty
who try something new often receive lower evaluations at first, until they become
accomplished at it.
It may be very useful for you to discuss your results with a colleague or with the
Teaching Centre. Such discussions help you to put your feelings into perspective,
identify practical things you can do to respond to the feedback, or reassure you that
you are not the only professor who has ever received a negative comment. For the
recordyoure not!
About teaching evaluation in general
So much emphasis (disproportionately, some say) is placed on end-of-term student
evaluation of teaching. Yet teaching can be evaluated in many ways (by students, by
peers, by self-reflection), at many times (mid-course or end of course), and for
several purposes: summativeto select new faculty, or to make personnel decisions
such as tenure and promotion; formativeto gather information to enhance the
quality of teaching.
No matter the purpose or time, no single source of data or any single course
evaluation provides sufficient information on which to base decisions.
It is vital to use multiple sources of information in assessing all components of
effective teaching. Course evaluations alone should never be used to make personnel
decisions. The professor should give them context with reflective explanations,
complement them with peers assessments, and situate them within a teaching
portfolio that also provides documentary evidence such as course outlines, sample
assignments, and a teaching philosophy statement. Similarly, if teaching
improvement is the goal, evaluation data alone are still not enough; instructors
should discuss results with colleagues or teaching centre staff, contextualize results
in terms of their own goals, compare end-of-term results to mid-term evaluations.
The literature shows that instructors are less likely to use evaluation data to modify
their teaching without this kind of consultation.

Going Forward
So by all means read and heed your students evaluations, but dont let them
paralyze or dispirit you. Put them into perspective and into context; tell yourself that
next term youll do a mid-term evaluation of your teaching (contact PCTC for some
sample forms); that way, you can identify issues early enough to make productive
changes.