Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching
https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/student-evaluations/
Article: Scholarly Teaching
Motivating Students to Give Helpful, Action-oriented Feedback
Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching
Michael’s
Recommendation
This is a great set of reminders for how to motivate and encourage your students to take feedback opportunities (e.g., mid-semester and end-of-course evaluations) seriously.
Along with the fresh start of the new year, many instructors will receive an opportunity to assess their teaching skills when they receive student evaluations of their Fall courses. Making sense of student feedback can be challenging so we offer the following tips for examining evaluations.
When considering student evaluations:
Pick a good time to do so, when you will have enough time to digest at least some of the information, have privacy, and can give yourself some mental ‘space’ to analyze the information.
Track quantitative results. Consider how the summary rating received for each item fits with your own teaching goals and your department’s expectations for teaching.
Look for patterns in students’ comments—identify trends, note what you have done well and what needs improvement.
Take your experience into account. If you are new to teaching, the school, or even the course, you may still be learning about various aspects of being a professor, such as course design, teaching skills, student interaction, and departmental expectations.
Take the context and characteristics of your course into account. Research shows that student evaluations often are more positive in courses that are smaller rather than larger, and elective rather than required. Also, evaluations are usually more positive in courses in which students tend to do well.