OUR VIEW: Course evaluations need to be evaluated

Nothing spells the end of the semester quite like bubble sheets. Whether it’s taking a challenging final or filling out course evaluations, bubble sheets mean the end is near.

While students have no problem committing hours of study time to preparing for finals, few students take course evaluations seriously.

Sure, we get it, course evaluations are a pain to fill out. It takes time to fill sift through the backpack to find a No. 2 pencil among all those No. 1 pencils – seriously, does anybody regularly use a No. 1 pencil anymore – fill in all those bubbles and write comments. Plus, if you’ve been at USU for any length of time, you’ve filled out so many of these, it becomes just another mindless activity.

But course evaluations are valuable. It gives teachers an idea of how they are doing. It provides administrators a gauge at how well their faculty are performing and it gives students a chance to provide feedback on the course.

However, it seems the only time a student cares about the course evaluation is when they have something negative to say. Otherwise, just fill the bubbles down the middle line and hand in the paper.

Perhaps the problem with course evaluation apathy comes from students feeling like the course evaluations aren’t weighed heavily enough in decisions related to keeping teachers and/or reprimanding teachers for unfair treatment of students. Perhaps students feel their view doesn’t matter and it won’t change the system even if they do give an honest response.

To some extent, those views are legitimate. While administrators and teachers do review these course evaluations, they are not heavily weighted against a teacher and unless a teacher is particularly concerned about how their students respond to them, there is little incentive to change.

Something needs to change with course evaluations in order to tap into their true potential as a valuable tracking tool. The evaluations need to be revised. The current wording does not give an accurate representation of the class. Some questions include a teacher’s preparation, enthusiasm, opportunity to ask questions and course objectives. Those don’t prompt much information. Most teachers are prepared for class, are enthusiastic, have class objectives outlined in a syllabus and allow students to ask questions. Those questions are about as useful as asking students, “Is the sky blue?”

While it is difficult to really gauge a teacher’s effectiveness from measured scale responses, surely there has to be a way to improve course evaluations. Most of the questions on the course evaluation focus on the class more than the teacher, but so often, it is the teacher that makes the class.

In all reality, teachers are the employees of the students. We pay tuition to fuel their paychecks. We should have a greater say on their performance. If a CEO isn’t doing their job in a corporation, the board of directors gives them the boot. We are the board of directors, the stockholders. After a semester of teachers evaluating us, it’s only fair they should be put under the microscope.