A Framework for Utilizing Instructor Evaluations
As an educator in higher education, you likely receive evaluations from students, peers, and your company. Although MyEducator has already written about using evaluations to create a culture of feedback and growth , this article specifically outlines a framework for utilizing instructor evaluations. If you feel overwhelmed by the feedback you receive, try breaking your reaction down by following these steps!
1. Compile Your Sources of Feedback
Start by putting all your evaluations in one place. Simply creating a folder to keep all your evaluations in one place can help you easily refer to them later. Having one place to view all evaluations can also help you keep a nuanced view of instructor evaluations, as an especially mean and unfair student comment can be balanced out by a peer evaluation that praises your student engagement. Compiling your evaluations, semester by semester, will allow you to follow the next step: filtering your data.
2. Filter for Meaningful Insights
At the risk of stating the obvious, we’ll say it: not all your feedback from evaluations will be helpful or applicable. Concerning qualitative feedback, you may find it easy to ignore rants about a failing grade, but you should also make sure to push aside fluffy pieces of praise and remarks about course elements beyond your control (i.e., “This teacher is great!” or “I wish the university offered this class remotely.”)
For quantitative feedback, such as Likert scale ratings, look for outliers and identify specific meaningful areas. This means that instead of viewing only your over 4.8/5 ratings, you can look at how you were rated in preparation, accessibility, and more.
3. Identify Strengths and Weaknesses
Now that you have filtered for data that matters, you can focus on building on your strengths and improving wherever needed. Look for repeated words and phrases across comments and areas where you are rated noticeably high or low. If you have access to qualitative comments and quantitative numbers, try to review them in combination to really define what you do best and what you can do better. For example, if you receive high ratings for “relevance” in your content, look for student and peer comments mentioning “real-world examples” and “applied projects.”
Consider as well how different courses and course formats affect your feedback. Is your flexibility ideal for remote learning, or are you better suited to energize a live classroom?
4. Create and Share Goals
Whether or not you view instructor evaluations as accurate or helpful, you can use identified strengths and weaknesses to create goals for yourself and your courses. If that seems superfluous, consider sharing these goals with your classes at the beginning of the next semester on syllabus day. You can also give examples of feedback that was helpful to you in the past, showing students how they can help you. Beyond engaging with students, creating goals from instructor evaluations allows you to show supervisors what you are doing well and how you work to improve. Scheduling a meeting with your supervisor to share your past wins and plans for the future helps your organization see your success. As you share what you are trying to accomplish, invite those around you to engage with what you have learned from past evaluations.
5. Watch for Trends over Time
As you continue through your academic career, you have an opportunity to build a professional story with your instructor evaluations. Identifying and promoting positive trends can help you with tenure applications, performance reviews, and your confidence as an educator. You can track trends of improvement or opportunities to improve using simple math. Start by finding your average and median scores across categories and courses and tracking how they change over time. Use word clouds or sentiment analysis to quickly find how comments you receive change over time as well. As you observe and direct trends for the better, you may find that instructor evaluations are something to look forward to and even . . . enjoyable?
Wrapping Up
You can create efficacy for instructor evaluations and make them more than a perfunctory or useless practice. Utilize instructor evaluations to improve, highlight your strengths to your organization, engage your students, and advance your career. Remember: compile, filter, identify strengths and weaknesses, set and share goals, and watch for trends. If you are looking for more help to personalize your courses, reach out to us via email (support@myeducator.com) or through MyEducator’s contact form ! We are here to help.
