By Greg Horner, Senior Editor.
As the end of the semester approaches students are busy finishing up some final assignments, preparing for exams and getting ready for classes in the winter. But one thing they might not be thinking about is the student feedback forms given at the end of every class. How important are these feedback forms? And what impact do they have on students and faculty?
“I think they’re kind of useless because I think a lot of students just check things randomly to get it done and get out of class,” says Mellissa Reimus, a Biology student. “But I think as long as students are honest about it — which I don’t think a lot of them are — it can be helpful to the professors.”
For David Redman, the math and computer science division chair, the feedback forms are necessary to make sure that students and faculty are performing to Delta’s standards. “I want to know what students think about the services we provided in the math division and in general throughout the college.”
The feedback forms aren’t designed solely for professors. Many of the questions included in the survey were added to have students evaluate themselves as well.
“The students are supposed to be thinking about, ‘how was my performance in this class?’ ” says English division chair Denise Hill. “I know sometimes we say this is teacher feedback, but it’s student feedback and also student self-reflection.”
The front of the form consists of a bubble-sheet in which students can record their level of satisfaction with a course and its instructor, while the back of the sheet has room for students to write specific comments about what they felt a professor was doing right and wrong. While the bubble sheet is important for determining overall participation and satisfaction in a class, Hill and others agree that the most important part of the survey is the comments section.
“I would say to my students – it’s nice to fill in the bubbles – but can you please take some time on the backside,” says Hill. “You can say things like, ‘this was an awful teacher’ but okay what was awful? I always hope and encourage my students to give me specific feedback.”
There isn’t a set requirement for how professors should administer the student feedback forms. But typically professors will leave the room when filling the forms and have a student drop them off at public safety.
David Peruski, dean of teaching and learning, says the ultimate aim of the college is to guarantee that students are allowed to anonymously submit their feedback and if any instructors were to violate that spirit of anonymity then they would hear about it.
“I have heard of instructors staying in the room and putting the envelope right in front of them,” says Peruski. “I feel that that is wrong — and I would talk to their division chair and make sure they intervene.”
After completion the forms are taken for processing by OIT; they scan the bubble sheets and measures total student approval for each course. The written portions are taken to each division office and a faculty member types up student comments. These recordings are then compiled in a database where the instructor and division chair has access to them. The entire process takes several weeks, and it should be noted that professors don’t receive the forms until after grades are recorded.
Instructors then read over their feedback forms and try to take away as much they can about their performance. Karen Wilson, a professor of economics, says she can’t wait to get her evaluation forms and see what students are saying about her methods.
“Most of us who teach care a lot about what students are feeling about our classes,” says Wilson. “We get those student evaluations back and we pay a lot of attention to them and I pay a lot of attention to other’s evaluations too.”
It is the responsibility of each division chair to review student evaluation forms to insure that their faculty are running a tight ship. Each division has its own methods of dealing with student feedback, but typically each chair is looking for signs of a pattern in a professor’s teaching.
“You know there’s a pattern or a trend going on, if in any particular question, you see the same lower responses across classes,” says Marcia Moore, the division chair for the humanities. “That’s one of the great things that student feedback can do — so when you see a pattern you can figure out some things to change.”
The forms are important for professors in other ways. When an instructor applies for tenure or promotion they must prove that they’ve met criteria in three areas: professional development, productive activity for the college and teaching effectiveness.
To demonstrate they’ve met the last category, a peer-review committee of three or four colleagues will evaluate the professor by sitting in on their classes, looking at course materials, speaking with the professor’s peers and looking at student surveys.
But there isn’t a way to quantify the weight student evaluations have in deciding a teacher’s effectiveness. Each division has its own attitude and every faculty member their own method.
“How much importance people put on those student evaluations is kind of an individual thing,” says Wilson. “I may put more importance on it as a faculty member then someone else might as a faculty member.”
When the committee has decided that a professor has met the criteria in teaching effectiveness, they summarize the student evaluations and include them in a promotion or tenure packet. That packet – which includes information about the applicant’s professional development and the productive activity they’ve done for the school — follows the professor throughout the process.
Peruski says that when he was a teacher, he would treat his student surveys as a priority — but questions how seriously students treat them. “I think students often underestimate how important they can be.”
Demetrios Scott is completing his general studies at Delta and he doesn’t feel that students spend enough time on their evaluations. “I think they are important because it gives teachers an idea about what they can do to become better and if there’s something that students don’t like, the teacher will know.”
Jordan Phillips is pursuing a medical degree and he says that when he first filled out the surveys he took them seriously “but after the first, second or third time it just starts to get monotonous.”
Ultimately Hill isn’t sure if the feedback forms accurately reflect student attitudes or how a class was taught in general. But she hopes that students will see the forms as an opportunity to have a dialogue with their professor.
“The student voice is really important and I think that form gives students a voice,” says Hill. “It matters – students should look at this very seriously as an opportunity to have a voice in their own learning experience.”
