Every semester at Mississippi State University, students critique their teachers’ performance by filling out an evaluation to assess the quality of instruction they receive. The evaluation is a 10-question Likert scale, in which respondents select answers ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
The evaluations are done on condition of anonymity, but in a small class, an instructor may recognize the handwriting of a student who writes in extra comments; however, students should not worry because instructors do not see the evaluations until final grades have been posted, according to Paul Grimes, head of finance and economics at MSU.
If a teacher consistently gets bad evaluations, the teacher may have a conference with the department head or work with another instructor for a while, according to Marian Huttenstine, head of the department of communication.
“If a problem is identified, the professor and department head meet and try to resolve it,” said Edmond Emplaincourt, head of foreign languages department.
“Generally, you can be less than excellent in one area but still keep your job,” Grimes said. “Teaching is a profession in which you should be above average.”
But how seriously are student evaluations really taken? Emplaincourt said the evaluations make up part of a larger picture.
“Students should know that they aren’t wasting their time,” Emplaincourt said. “By turning in an honest evaluation, they serve fellow students by maintaining quality instruction.”
“Students should be aware that the faculty takes them (evaluations) seriously, and that they are given consideration in terms of raises and promotions,” Grimes said.
Students have their take on evaluations.
“I always try to be truthful,” Vanessa Culpepper, a senior at MSU, said. “If I think there is a problem, I write it in, just in case the faculty takes them seriously. If something is positive I include that to reinforce positive teaching methods.”
“I don’t think they have any effect,” Joey Ford, a senior at MSU, said.
Ned Lovell, head of educational leadership, said he doesn’t think the evaluations are very effective in their assessments. “It doesn’t provide a way to look at the behavior of a faculty member,” Lovell said. “The questions are too general and generic. They don’t do us much good.”
Huttenstine said she is not a big fan of the Likert scales.
“It asks some things that I think are essentially meaningless,” Huttenstine said.
Statements on the survey that Huttenstine finds aimless are “I have had to work hard in this class,” and “the instructor is readily available.”
Huttenstine said she would support measures to change the evaluation format to short answer questions.
Sometimes there is the odd scenario of one out of three of a teacher’s classes reporting an overall bad evaluation.
Emplaincourt said that if one student gives a teacher an extremely bad report, that can be enough to severely affect the whole class average.
Huttenstine said another way in which the accuracy of the evaluation may be altered is by students giving below average teachers good evaluations because they don’t know any better.
“Students don’t always know that the information they are getting is the most accurate or recent,” Huttenstine said. “They are not aware of the faculty member’s service responsibilities.”
Emplaincourt said demanding, respectful and available professors get the best evaluations.
“Mister nice guy, who gives easy A’s, gets no respect,” said Emplaincourt.
Nonetheless, student evaluations do have an impact. Huttenstine said students critiquing faculty should not stop with the form filled out at the end of the semester.
“Faculty member evaluations should be an ongoing dialogue, not just a written instrument,” Huttenstine said.
She said students should feel free to report praise and criticism to their department heads at any time.