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news:
Teacher evaluations
draw mixed results
By Danielle Grossman
On-line Forty-Niner
Cal State Long
Beach has been conducting a study for the past five years
in an effort to change the current teacher evaluations, making
them more effective.
"I think the
evaluations are a good idea," said professor Tim Caron,
"but I think it's an inferior system for evaluating the
course. It's vital to get feedback, and it's better to have
something that's not perfect than nothing at all."
A lot of professors
agree that the current evaluations are not as informative
as they should be.
"I think they're
a good thing to have, but I think they could be re-written,"
said Sidney Fox, a psychology department instructor. "If
a student gets a bad grade, it's hard to distinguish the difference
between the class and the student's efforts. A student with
a good grade will find the class good."
The university
has been researching a possible new evaluation called Ideas,
written by a non-profit organization. A sample survey was
given to about 40-50 professors in more than 100 courses to
use on their students.
The new evaluation
comes in two forms, a short form that lets the professor know
if they're meeting the course objective, and a long form that
allows for a deep diagnostic. The long form is about 40 questions
long, and it gives the professor a more detailed evaluation
of the course, but it would probably be used only occasionally,
with the short form being used more often.
While most professors
agree that a change is needed, not all professors like the
more diagnostic form. The university plans to have another
trial next year. If the new forms are not accepted, there
will be changes made in the current evaluation by the following
year.
Teacher evaluations
are used for two different reasons: to evaluate professors,
such as during a promotion, and to evaluate classes to help
professors make classes better.
"I think they're
a very good idea for the purpose of having faculty improve
their teaching," said Wayne Dick, chair of Faculty Personnel
Policies Council. "It's very useful data when you choose
to use it and most do."
Teacher evaluations
are completely anonymous and are not given back to the professors
until long after students' grades have been turned in. The
multiple choice answers are also given back calculated and
averaged so that professors know statistically how students
rated them on each question.
Most professors
take the time to go over the comments and agree that any negative
comments from students are constructive.
"For the most
part, students take them seriously," said Caron. "They're
helpful and not mean-spirited."
"You can always
count on one person having a problem," said Dick, "but
it's very rare for just one person dumping on me. Some people
get very annoyed. The negative ones hurt your feelings, but
they also give you some direction. Every fourth semester a
class has to be re-worked and the first time through is always
a little rough. Students are an enormous help."
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