Students
may use evaluations to punish professors
By
Annica Sundstrom
On-line Forty-Niner
Throughout
the spring semester, students have been
judged based on how well they take quizzes,
write essays and participate in class discussions.
But as cumulative finals and deadlines for
monster-sized term papers are swiftly approaching,
so are the students’ evaluations of
their teachers and how well they have actually
performed — it will soon be time to
grade the graders.
“I
think it’s important that students
are given the opportunity to voice their
opinions about their teachers and classes,”
business major George Alaelua said. “But
it is probably equally important that the
professors believe that the evaluations
are truthful and precise, otherwise the
feedback is useless.”
But
when the evaluations are passed out and
the teacher has left the classroom, how
fair are students when they grade their
teachers? Are some of them so happy that
they will never ever have to see that professor
again that they just mark the Scantron in
front of them randomly? Or are some students
just filling in the lowest scores available
for that teacher who did not fully appreciate
the project on which they worked so hard?
Countless
studies have been conducted over the years
on how students tend to evaluate professors.
And even though many studies suggest that
student evaluations are a great way for
faculty members to get the feedback they
need to improve their teaching methods and
further their careers, how students grade
their teachers is sometimes questionable.
Maythee
Rojas, associate professor in the women’s
studies department, said she thinks that
the student evaluations are valuable, but
that they are not always reliable.
“If
you give the evaluations right after a test,
the scores are usually lower,” she
said.
Rojas
also said that students’ grades might
influence the outcome of student evaluations
in that a student who is about to get a
low grade in a certain class might, for
instance, give that particular teacher a
lower score.
Research
by Valen Johnson of Duke University supports
Rojas’ observation as it shows that
students’ expectations of what grade
they will get in a class often influence
how they rate their professor. In fact,
course grades have been correlated to course
evaluations in that higher grades often
lead to higher scores for the teacher.
Alaelua,
who studied at Queens College, New York
University and Santa Monica College, agreed
with the suggestion that a student’s
grade might affect the evaluations.
“Although
it is partial and unfair, I think students
who are about to get a low grade tend to
give the teacher lower scores,” Alaelua
said.
Not
all students agree, however.
“I
do not think that I have ever given a teacher
negative feedback just because that particular
teacher has given me a low grade,”
computer information systems major Walter
Alvarez said.
A
study concerning student evaluations published
in College Learning also suggests that the
evaluations encourage faculty members to
grade their students less harshly.
And
this does happen, occasionally. Assistant
professor of journalism, Genelle Belmas,
said that during her teaching career she
has encountered professors who have graded
their students leniently during the semester
in order to get high scores on their evaluations.
“[The
student evaluation] does, for some professors,
become a popularity contest,” Belmas
said.
Belmas
and Rojas said that professors who have
not yet received tenure depend greatly on
good student evaluations in order to further
their careers, while already tenured professors
will never be removed just because of poor
student evaluations.
Thus,
a couple of zesty comments on the back of
a student evaluation form will not get a
tenured professor in trouble. In fact, tenured
professors are basically untouchable. And
even though tenured professors’ classes
are evaluated, the scores do not make much
difference when it comes to their future
careers. The evaluations might make a difference,
however, to students who will enroll in
that same professor’s class in the
future.
As
indicated by a study published in Assessment
& Evaluation in Higher Education in
Higher Education, students are by and large
willing to evaluate their teacher, but they
often doubt that faculty members pay attention
to what they have to say.
Some
students disagree with this sentiment. While
some believe that their teachers take their
opinion into account, others look at the
student evaluations with more skepticism.
Alaelua
said that he thinks that how much a professor
cares about the evaluations depends on how
far the professor has come in his or her
career.
“I
think new teachers or part-timers probably
pay more attention to the evaluations,”
Alaelua said. “I also think that new
teachers might have the evaluations more
often in mind when they grade their students
than others.”
Alvarez
disagreed.
“I
think that most professors really care about
the feedback the students give them,”
he said. “I have never had a teacher
that has openly said that he does not care
about the students’ feedback.”
According
to Belmas, most professors use the feedback
they get from their students to improve
their classes and their teaching methods,
but there are exceptions.
Some teachers just take the evaluations
they get and put them away until it is time
to present their scores to the committee
that determines if he or she will get retention
or tenure, she said.
Rojas
is one professor who does pa attention to
the evaluation. She said that even though
not all students’ comments are helpful
or constructive, the evaluations are still
useful.
“I
have gotten tips from students on how to
change some aspects of my classes for the
better,” she said.
Rojas
also points out that there is a personal
side to evaluations as well.
“Even
though most feedback might be positive,
one tends to remember the bad ones,”
she said. “It’s an ego thing.”
While
students often talk about how many points
they got on the last quiz or what grade
the teacher gave them on their essays, most
professors do not discuss the scores they
get on their evaluations with their fellow
professors, Belmas said.
Not
all professors guard their evaluation scores
as if they were the gold at Fort Knox.
“Some
professors at CSULB even post their evaluations
on the Internet,” Belmas said.
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