{"id":11849,"date":"2012-09-21t08:00:04","date_gmt":"2012-09-21t13:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=11849"},"modified":"2012-09-19t13:33:16","modified_gmt":"2012-09-19t18:33:16","slug":"ask-professor-pedagogy-student-evaluations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2012\/09\/ask-professor-pedagogy-student-evaluations\/","title":{"rendered":"ask professor pedagogy: student evaluations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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ask professor pedagogy<\/strong> is a twice monthly advice column written by 2022年世界杯中国小组赛积分 staff. one aspect of\u00a0our mission is to cultivate dialogue about teaching and learning, so we welcome questions and concerns that arise in the classroom; particularly those from vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff.\u00a0if you have a question that you’d like professor p to address, please send it to us<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

dear professor p,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

at the end of every semester i dread looking at my student evaluations.\u00a0 i put so much work into my courses and i\u2019ve improved immensely since i first started teaching.\u00a0 yet, i consistently get negative student comments on my teaching.\u00a0 students often say they think i am unprepared or that i mismanage class time.\u00a0 however, i am a well-respected expert in my field and i am fairly creative in the ways i use class time.\u00a0 i am wondering if i can trust student evaluations any more.\u00a0 are student evaluations valid assessments of good teaching?\u00a0 i happen to be a woman as well.\u00a0 are students biased against women faculty?\u00a0 in short, should i even listen to my students\u2019 opinions, or are they the ravings of a bunch of petty, entitled, sexists?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

bitterly yours,<\/strong><\/span>
\ndr. frustrated<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

dear dr. frustrated:<\/p>\n

easy now.\u00a0 let\u2019s take a breath and remember why we\u2019re here.\u00a0 i bet, like most faculty, you didn\u2019t get into academic work because you wanted to battle over-inflated egos in departmental meetings, write grant expenditure reports, eat rubber chicken meals at conferences, and lose sleep about how much you\u2019re not publishing.\u00a0 i\u2019ll bet you chose this career because you love the insights and intellectual life of your discipline and you want to share that love with your peers and students. \u00a0teaching should be a meaningful and invigorating experience, not one that makes you want to talk to your gin about alternative careers.<\/p>\n

that said, i feel your pain.\u00a0 our lives are busier than students often know or appreciate, therefore they can have unreasonable expectations and display a rudeness that would even make sasha baron cohen blush.<\/p>\n

also, it is worth noting that teaching appears to be a much more complex job once you\u2019re behind the lectern, and it can take time to develop the knowledge and skills required to do it well.\u00a0 it may be that there are very subtle and minor things that could make a big difference in your teaching effectiveness and evaluations.\u00a0 therefore, i definitely recommend you go to one of the awesomely talented staff of your 2022年世界杯中国小组赛积分 (cft) to find assistance analyzing and improving your skills, refining a teaching philosophy, and rediscovering your passion for teaching.\u00a0 after all, it\u2019s free and they\u2019re just twiddling their thumbs waiting for you to come over and make their lives meaningful.<\/p>\n

now to answer your concluding questions.\u00a0 first, are student evaluations valid assessments of teaching?\u00a0 yes and no. \u00a0most research on the subject suggests that student evaluations of teaching do not vary that much from those of faculty when it comes to the basics of teacher-student interactions: course organization and planning, communication skills, rapport, course difficulty and workload, and grading fairness (cashin 1995).\u00a0 therefore, unless first graders wrote the survey, student opinion on these subjects is fairly valid and reliable.\u00a0 where students tend to show less ability to evaluate teaching is in judging faculty expertise (since they haven\u2019t been tortured in our disciplines like we have) and when they expect a low grade (since they may be a bit cranky).\u00a0 yet even these interpretations of student evaluation data are a matter of some excruciatingly wonkish debate, a debate that is not likely to vie for public attention like those between conan v. leno, team jacob v. team edward, or of course, jennifer aniston v. angelina jolie.<\/p>\n

second question: are students biased around issues of gender?\u00a0 hold on to your brain.\u00a0 studies that involve quantitative methods and large data sets of student evaluations suggest that gender bias against faculty is small if not insignificant (fernandez and mateo 1997; basow 1998).\u00a0 many researchers in this area suggest that various other factors, like the basic skills of teaching, affect student evaluations more than the gender of the instructor.\u00a0 so, end of story, right?\u00a0 not quite.<\/p>\n

more focused, qualitative studies of student opinion often reveal evidence of gender prejudice.\u00a0 in a patriarchal world like ours?\u00a0 \u00a0i know, big surprise.\u00a0 indeed, the effect of gender may be more subtle but no less profound since it is inseparable from many other dimensions of teaching.\u00a0 while some studies reveal prejudices whenever students and faculty have different genders (bachen, mcloughlin and garcia 1999; centra and gaubatz 2000), many others have found that student bias, both positive and negative, is most evident, if at all, when it involves women instructors (basow 1995). \u00a0these biases correspond to frequent reports from men and women faculty about the sometimes strikingly different student evaluations they receive, ones that suggest traditional gender roles still shape very gendered student expectations (kierstead, d\u2019agostino and dill 1988).\u00a0 to put it crassly, students sometimes expect women faculty to be more caring, supportive, accessible, and attractive than men, and, any violation of these expectations may cause students to question their authority or expertise.\u00a0 when it comes to how some students talk about their instructors, as miller and chamberlin have summarized, \u201cwomen are teachers, men are professors\u201d (2000).\u00a0 that said, greater numbers of women and shifting gender roles in the academy do seem to be redefining expectations, however slowly, and thus are making a wider array of teaching styles and pedagogies possible for all faculty.<\/p>\n

to sum up, student evaluations can be valid and reliable measures of many elements of good teaching, but they are far from infallible and can, at times, reflect gender or other prejudices that are evident in our broader society.\u00a0 therefore, student evaluations should not be the only data source for you as you evaluate your teaching.\u00a0 look at your students\u2019 work and determine whether it meets your learning goals.\u00a0 ask your departmental peers or those lovable consultants at the cft to observe your classes or review your evaluations and offer suggestions for improvement.\u00a0 while you\u2019re at it, ask those cft consultants to conduct a mid-semester focus group with your students, what they call a \u201csmall group analysis<\/a>,\u201d to gather formative feedback to help avoid poor end-of-semester evaluations.\u00a0 lastly, never stop exploring ways to find your passions for, or improved skills of, teaching, and you\u2019ll be far happier.\u00a0 of course, if these suggestions don\u2019t work, there\u2019s always medication.<\/p>\n

humbly yours,<\/p>\n

professor p<\/p>\n

interested in talking more about student evaluations? the cft will be hosting a conversation on teaching on tuesday, september 25, from 4:10-5:30pm to discuss going public with teaching evaluations<\/strong><\/a>. this conversation invites faculty, students and staff to join a dialogue with tim mcnamara<\/strong> (vice provost for faculty and international affairs), karen campbell<\/strong> (senior associate dean for undergraduate education, college of arts and science), craig smith<\/strong> (associate dean for undergraduate studies, peabody college), and maryclaire manard<\/strong> (president of vanderbilt student government). this event will be a forum to begin to address many questions regarding course evaluations.\u00a0 it also will be an opportunity for faculty to consider how faculty, students and staff might participate in the development of better methods to evaluate learning and teaching at vanderbilt.\u00a0join us!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

references:<\/p>\n

bachen, c. m., m. m. mcloughlin, and s.s. garcia. 1999. \u201cassessing the role of gender in college students’ evaluations of faculty.\u201d communication education<\/em>, 448(3): 193-210.<\/p>\n

basow, s. a. 1995. \u201cstudent evaluations of college professors: when gender matters.\u201d journal of educational psychology.<\/em> 87(4): 656-665. <\/em><\/p>\n

—–. 1998. \u201cstudent evaluations: gender bias and teaching styles.\u201d in l. h. collins, j.c. and k. quina (eds.). career strategies for women in academe: arming athena<\/em>. thousand oaks: sage. pp. 135-156.<\/p>\n

cashin, william e. 1995. \u201cstudent ratings of teaching: the research revisited.\u201d idea paper no. 32. center for faculty evaluation and development, kansas state university. september.<\/p>\n

centra, j. a. and n. b. gaubatz. 2000. \u201cis there gender bias in student evaluations of teaching?\u201d journal of higher education<\/em>. 71(1): 17-33.<\/p>\n

fernandez, j. and m.a. mateo. 1997. \u201cstudent and faculty gender in ratings of university teaching quality.\u201d sex roles<\/em>. 37(11-12): 997-1003.<\/p>\n

kierstead, d., p. d’agostino, and h. dill. 1988. \u201csex role stereotyping of college professors: bias in students’ ratings of instructors.\u201d journal of educational psychology<\/em>. 80(3): 342-4.<\/p>\n

miller, joann and marilyn chamberlin. 2000. \u201cwomen are teachers, men are professors: a study of student perceptions.\u201d teaching sociology<\/em>. 28(4): 283-98.<\/p>\n

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