Many institutions encourage middle- and end-of-semester instructor and course evaluation. While instructors could regard this practice as nothing more than a routine, administrative necessity, these evaluations should be seen as an opportunity for instructors to grow, understand their students better, and adapt instruction to their students’ needs.
Looking beyond the routine of instructor and course evaluations, instructors and students can benefit from creating a culture of feedback and growth in the classroom.
Seeing Evaluations in a Positive Light
Although it can be daunting for anyone to receive feedback on their work, instructor and course evaluations are effective and welcomed tools for reflection, growth, and communication.
Evaluations Equal Opportunities for Growth
Feedback is an opportunity to grow both personally and professionally. Through strategic questions that engage the students’ understanding and interests, instructors can identify meaningful and insightful feedback for improvement within the results, highlighting areas of strengths and opportunities for growth.
Evaluations Embolden Students in Their Education
By engaging students in a culture of feedback, instructors teach students about collaboration and mutual respect. Students feel that their analyses of their learning experiences are heard and can assume that instructors will continuously do their best to improve that experience.
Institutional Cohesion through Evaluations
Evaluations are also important in helping institutions maintain high-quality teaching standards, and they help departments identify areas of curriculum that need revision.
Laying the Foundation for a Culture of Feedback
Although instructors typically don’t receive their evaluations until the middle or end of a course, they should understand that the process of evaluation—and building a culture of feedback—starts well before the beginning of a course.
One way to lay the foundation for a culture of feedback is to take seriously the evaluations of the previous semester in the revision of the coming semester’s curriculum. Another way to lay the foundation is to reach out to students before the course begins to let them know feedback is welcome and that their classroom will be a place to grow and learn together. This pre-course establishment of expectations is a great opportunity for instructors to invite students to share what they perceive will be their obstacles and strengths in the coming semester. This effort opens a line of communication and shows a desire to engage and a commitment to each individual’s learning.
Without establishing this line of communication and engagement early on, instructors may find it difficult to collect feedback later in the course. Frequently, instructor and course evaluations get a bad rap because they tend to be administered only at the end of the semester once students have seen or can gauge their final course grade. This delay can create a potential for biased results, as a student might rate an instructor or course based on a received grade rather than the overall learning experience. In order to isolate the learning experience from the received grade, instructors must establish expectations and seek feedback early on and throughout the course.
(For information on how to best prepare your students to receive the coursework ahead, see “Starting Out Right: The Art of the Pre-Assessment.”)
Best Practices for Evaluations
Continuous Evaluation
Anyone who has worked in a culinary setting knows that chefs don’t wait until the final plating to test the dish. Rather, chefs taste-test throughout the creation process to ensure that every aspect of the dish is correct. They test produce and ingredients as they are delivered to the kitchen, the level of doneness throughout, the flavor of the sauce before it’s spooned, and even the beverage pairings to ensure that everything is just right.
Likewise, instructors shouldn’t wait until the final exam to determine whether students have had a positive and effective learning experience. They should reach out to students prior to and throughout the course to ensure the instruction given is being received in a way conducive to the students’ learning needs. Adjustments can then be made before and during the course.
Evaluation Summary
Research shows that students feel their feedback is valued and more encouraged when instructors or departments provide summaries of past evaluation results along with changes that have been made in response.
Confidentiality
Feedback should be collected anonymously and kept confidential. This method of survey collection ensures that feedback is honest and can prevent discord within the classroom.
Comprehensive Questionnaires
Evaluation questions should cover various aspects of teaching, including clarity of instruction, engagement, accessibility, and supportiveness. Open-ended questions can help elicit detailed feedback.
The Importance of Qualitative Feedback in Evaluations
Fortunately, institutions are trending away from the classic Likert Scale approach to feedback. The current focus on obtaining qualitative feedback is more effectively helping instructors convert their results into growth because it provides instructors with far more tailored results than a linear rating.
Types of Questions to Ask Your Students
Although multiple-choice and rank-order questions are admittedly more effective than a classic rating system or a series of binary questions, using open-ended questions has been shown to elicit the most detailed feedback in evaluations; in addition, open-ended questions allow instructors to isolate feedback about the course from feedback about instruction.
Ask the Why
Every question within an evaluation should provide a space for students to explain their answers. Although it can be helpful to learn whether or not a facet of the course has appealed to a student, directional growth is more attainable by asking students why they feel the way they do. Use specifying questions to help your students show you their perspectives.
Constructing an Evaluation
The definition of good teaching may vary, but the concept of scholarly teaching—evidence-based content, pedagogical method, and subject knowledge—can guide instructors in developing their evaluation questions. When developing questions, instructors should consider the following aspects expected of their course and their teaching style:
• Clear goals
• Adequate preparation
• Appropriate methods
• Significant results
• Effective presentation
• Reflective critique
In conjunction with this list, instructors should consider framing questions that address the following:
• Course organization
• Communication
• Teacher-student interaction
• Workload
• Grading
• Students’ self-rated learning—what they felt was useful or interesting
For more information on how to help students participate in a culture of feedback and assessment within the classroom, see our Dig Deeper series:
• Dig Deeper: Assessment and Feedback
• Dig Deeper: Peer Feedback and Self-Assessment
• Dig Deeper: Assessment for Learning
How Can MyEducator Help Improve Instructor and Course Evaluations?
The modern and intuitive MyEducator platform provides many features that students prefer over traditionally published textbooks. These features are designed to engage students, improve learning, and increase positive student feedback in any classroom setting.
As the following video illustrates, our platform offers unmatched, flexible learning and improves efficiency for both instructors and students. The robust analytics feature helps instructors track their students’ efforts and performance, giving instructors a better understanding of students’ evolving and varying needs. With these tools, instructors can tailor their teaching as needed throughout the course to fit their students’ learning needs.
References
McGraw Hill. (2022, November 8). “Are you prepared for instructor evaluations?” McGraw Hill Blog. https://www.mheducation.com/highered/blog/2024/06/are-you-prepared-for-instructor-evaluations.html
Medina, M. S., Smith, W. T., Kolluru, S., Sheaffer, E. A., & DiVall, M. (2019). “A review of strategies for designing, administering, and using student ratings of instruction.” American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 83(5), 7177. https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe7177
Qualtrics. “The complete guide to course evaluations.” Qualtrics XM Blog (Industry). Accessed August 1, 2024. https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/industry/course-evaluations/
