Only about 45 per cent of students fill out student evaluations each year, but the results given on these evaluations can determine the future job of the teacher in question.
If an instructor receives less than a 4.0 average on the summative question at the end of the evaluation, they are required to create an action plan with the chair head of their department. If another evaluation produces the same average below 4.0, the instructor is essentially fired from teaching that course.
But with questions asking whether the teacher spoke audibly or returned assignments promptly, the evaluations hardly feel like worthwhile assessments of a teacher’s role in the classroom. This is less than inspiring to a student as they rush through these baseline questions to fill out the comments section to voice their actual concerns.
The questions should include real issues a student generally has with a teacher and need to be more clearly worded. If they were better worded, students could more accurately assess their instructors’ performance.
This is the kind of feedback that a teacher could use to improve their students’ experience in their classroom, which should be the ultimate purpose of these evaluations.
It’s time the university improves teaching evaluations. They hold too much weight to be asking such ineffective questions.
