Hi, Colton,

My institution uses student evaluations alone, but we utilize IDEA evaluation forms, so the student scores can be compared to national, institutional, and disciplinary norms. Our former director of assessment conducted several factor analysis studies on the IDEA questionnaires and determined that they all basically measured one construct - whether or not the students believed that the instructor created a classroom environment in which the students could learn. He was not a big fan of the IDEA weighting of student responses, so he believed that the higher of the student scores (raw or adjusted) should be used in the comparisons.

Dear Colton,

Different units on campus do it differently with one set of common questions for the student evaluations. In our department of Civil Engineering and Construction, the measures are: couse evaluations, teaching loads, new courses introduced, integration of new technology and helping colleagues with instructions. Amir

Though I have seen the question as not so much important for my own work at university - I am emeritus now -, it cannot harm to know something about this, I think. My experience: Colleagues are pleased normally to get a special print of the last publication.

Hi,

In my institution , at the end of each semester, the students are filling a feedback questionnaire' divided to three sections, one section is for quality of the teacher, one for the interest and importance of the subject learned, and one section for overall teacher's performance. the teacher receives an average grade that places him in a certain quartile among his colleagues in the department, his faculty and the whole university, and there is a number that establishes if his performance is very high, high, medium or low compared to others in the university.

This is done every year, and when it is time for promotion in the university, these grades are taken into account as one of the promotion's criteria.

Thank you all!

It seems that many places put more influence on the student ratings than my own university. Where I am, the student ratings tend to mean very little but are used as indicators. Everyone has rotten apples occasionally but when ratings are consistently bad of the comments consistently indicate bad practice, this is an indication of a problem.

@Dibakar Indeed, that would be the ultimate measure but how could that be measured? Even if we were able to get salary information for all of our former students, how could we measure the role that we played in inspiring the student to achieve that goal?

In my faculty, the quality of a course is evaluated by a questionnaire which measure three dimensions. The first one measures the course content suitability considering previous courses and practical values, while the second one measures the teaching staff presentation of the course quality, and the availability of learning materials. The 3rd dimension measures the quality of the facilities, and relevant equipment. Initially, sample of the students population were asked to fill that questionnaires, but currently all the students are asked to fill it via an e-system.

Thank you Mohamed. Do you require that they all fill the e-system survey? If so, how do you force them to do it? If not, what level of participation do you get?

I ask because we've tried an electronic version of a related survey at my university and, if we don't use class time to make them do the survey, the participation is very low.

Colton, you are welcome, and thank you for opening this discussion.

Yes, all the students are required to fill the questionnaire. Initially, the participation under freewill conditions was, unfortunately, also low. As a result, the faculty administration had to force them to participate through a minor penalty; they delayed the display of the semester results by a few days. Perhaps the psychological impact of that discussion was intense enough to force them to participate in completing the questionnaire by the periodic date per semester.

Thank you again Mohamed.

I've seen other places that do something like that as well. The surveys are online but the final grades will not be displayed until the survey is completed. Perhaps if someone is not concerned about their grades, they could go without doing it but that is very rare.

You are welcome.

Yes, that is right, but I guess normal students are always awaiting the appearance of their grads. In addition, in countries where joining the armed forces is compulsory, a delay in the grades of the final year may cause a delay in joining the armed forces by about 3 months! This stresses them and forces them to follow the requirements of the quality assurance.

The main problem is that it is nearly impossible to evaluate the honesty, and seriousness of the students in regard with careful reading, and completing the questionnaires! As results, the consequent analyses of these questionnaires are questionable.

Another critical issue in the evaluation of the teacher/professor is surrounding circumstances. For example, if two professors collaborated in teaching a course in cascade. The first one teaches a simple topic in a short duration, while the second one teaches a complex topic in a relatively long duration. The first topic is a preparatory material while the second topic presents the core scientific issues. Occasionally, many students dislike the second professor and downgrade his/her evaluation, while the first one may be given a high satisfaction level. Therefore, I guess that the construction of the questionnaires should be scientifically sound, and should be prepared by specialists.