Students question evaluation forms
While most faculty members feel course evaluations are a valuable resource, some students aren’t sure their professors pay attention to results and therefore, believe filling them out is a waste of time.
Course evaluations are done by students at the end of a semester and are used to evaluate professors’ work and methods of teaching.
Students may feel their comments aren’t valued because the evaluations are not easily accessible. A synopsis of the results from the last five years can be found in the archives section of the Merrill Library. The results of the course evaluations from the Spring 2000 Semester, nearly two years ago, are posted outside the Academic Services Office of the Taggart Student Center’s second floor. The Utah Statesman also has the course evaluation summaries from the Spring of 1999, posted on their Web site (www.utahstatesman.com).
Joyce Kinkead, vice provost for undergraduate studies and research, said the reactions about evaluations vary.
“Some faculty are cynical if students don’t take [the evaluations] seriously,” she said.
However, she said most of the comments from students are highly regarded by professors. In her own experience, she holds evaluations throughout the term, in addition to the one required at the end of the semester.
“The professors look at them very closely,” she said.
Several students don’t believe professors care about their responses.
“I’ve been here for a couple of years, the majority of professors don’t seem to care; they’re like an elitist group,” said Trent Rasmussen, a senior studying landscape architecture.
Heather Fisher, a sophomore studying speech therapy, said her experience with evaluations has not been positive, although she spends time filling out the questions and making sure she voices her concerns.
“I don’t think the teachers pay attention to the evaluations because they don’t change the class,” she said.
A select few are concerned about the responses they get and “take them to heart,” Rasmussen said. “They’re a step in the right direction.”
Both Rasmussen and Fisher said they were unsure of where they could find the results from past course evaluations.
Processing evaluations takes a great deal of time, said Kyle Hyde, assistant director of the Planning and Analysis Office.
He said his office is “the middle-man in the process.” After his office has evaluated them, they send them back to each college for review.
This fall the Planning and Analysis Office expects to receive approximately 50,000 forms, and it will take four weeks to scan them and generate statistics, Hyde said.
Kinkead said evaluations may be done online in the future.