t will soon be time for the day during which you barely make it to class on time, only to open the door and see some random professor sitting at the front of what you thought was your class. But just before turning to leave, embarrassed, you realize it is evaluation day! Yes, it’s that time of the semester again: term papers are due, Christmas decorations are out way too early, finals are looming like storm clouds in the distance and you are asked for your feedback on professors.
Personally, I despise evaluation day. Don’t get me wrong, the 20-minute break from normal class activities is always welcome, but after having filled out well over a dozen of those forms, it becomes tiresome and doesn’t seem worth it. I’m not even talking about the fact that one-third of the questions are not applicable to the class; I’m talking about the fact that these evaluations are all but meaningless.
Admittedly, for professors who are not tenured, these evaluations are somewhat useful. First, it allows the school to see what students think of them, assuming students took the time to fill out the form honestly and thoroughly. Furthermore, professors are likely to be interested in having some feedback to check that students are satisfied with them and to compare their teaching success with other professors. However, regarding tenured professors, I cannot say that I see a point.
In all fairness, I can imagine a few of my past professors taking the time to read the comments and pour over the evaluation data as true feedback. I can even imagine some of them changing their teaching style as a result. However, I see the vast majority of professors not even bothering to look at the feedback, let alone changing in reaction to it. I could be wrong about that, but I have yet to see any sort of evidence compelling me to believe that professors attribute any sort of value to these Scantron-like sheets.
The test-like, fill-in-the-bubble format does little to convince me that the evaluations are anything of importance. The fact that the forms are the same for every course, regardless of the discipline, also harms the validity. If some professors would add their own supplement with course-specific questions, I would be more likely to take the time to give honest feedback. I wouldn’t rush to fill out the form, only to enjoy a cat nap or a daydreaming session until everyone else is done.
The uniform scale for all courses is neither accurate nor reliable at measuring the performance of each professor. It really only measures how quickly a student can learn the layout of the form, fill in the appropriate questions, think of something witty to put in the open-ended comment box and walk it up to the front of the classroom.
Despite the sense of anonymity of the evaluations, many students do not give their honest opinion for a variety of reasons. There is always the fear that a comment you make will be traced back to you, and no one wants to be in hot water for honest feedback. Many students, myself included, do not take the time to give the amount of feedback that would be beneficial to professors.
Although the evaluations are good in theory, the structure of tenure destroys any weight which they could hold. In my experience, the professors who need the feedback the most and could use an honest response to their teaching style are all tenured and set in their ways to the point where no piece of paper is going to change them.
The fact that neither students nor professors value evaluations enough has resulted in their utter lack of importance. The whole process has become outdated and useless for any professor with tenure. I see no reason to continue forced evaluations of any professor with tenure; associate professors should still be evaluated. In fact, having fewer evaluations to fill out would result in more seriousness given to the few that students would have to do. Professors with tenure could still give out their own evaluation or choose not to do anything if they aren’t going to bother looking at the results.
