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Post by eval on May 5, 2015 12:47:17 GMT -5
My school has students fill out teaching evaluations online, instead of in class and on paper. This means that a huge number of students never do them, and the end result is highly skewed. I've had semesters where I had a perfect score, but that was clearly because only about 40% of students filled out evals. How should I deal with it when submitting evidence of teaching quality? On one hand I don't want to be seen as someone who is trying to mislead the SC, but on the other I don't want to play down my qualifications.
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Post by On a SC on May 5, 2015 14:16:01 GMT -5
My school has students fill out teaching evaluations online, instead of in class and on paper. This means that a huge number of students never do them, and the end result is highly skewed. I've had semesters where I had a perfect score, but that was clearly because only about 40% of students filled out evals. How should I deal with it when submitting evidence of teaching quality? On one hand I don't want to be seen as someone who is trying to mislead the SC, but on the other I don't want to play down my qualifications. |
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Post by bribe them on May 5, 2015 15:41:14 GMT -5
To get more accurate results, I give everyone a small bonus if some percentage (usually 80% or 85%) of students fill out an evaluation. It's worked every time I've done it.
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Post by don't sweat it on May 5, 2015 16:33:29 GMT -5
Just include response rates and be sure to state the evaluations were conducted online. SC members will see a wide variation here, and will hopefully pay attention to the content (and understand that response rates are always lower for online evals.)
Given that,
1. Put some care into how you present summaries and raw data. Most online systems are designed to present pretty results for a browser, but these look lousy when printed. You might want to create your own summary form, or at least figure out how to reformat what's given to you.
2. Yes, as "bribe them" suggests, in the future you can use some tricks to increase the response rate. You should, however, also be free to distribute your own written evaluation forms in class (perhaps in addition to the institutional ones.) Confirm this with your chair. I have found in-class evaluations to provide much more useful feedback.
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Post by ditto on May 5, 2015 16:36:55 GMT -5
I do the exact same type of bribery. I usually give levels of incentives like a small amount if they get to 75% and more for 95% completion - it sometimes helps encourage their competitive side by telling them how other classes are doing, and they end up reminding each other to complete the evaluation. It works really well.
For submitting evals from earlier semesters, all you can do is include the N and response rate with the scores.
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Post by Several strategies on May 6, 2015 12:50:41 GMT -5
1. Ask students to bring laptops to class (though most do most of the time anyway), end the class 15 minutes early and ask them fill out the forms then.
2. Do (1) as soon as evaluations become available (i.e., not at the very end of the semester). Then remind students several times, in class and/or over class email list -- I think of it as strategies used to increase response rates when doing questionnaire surveys: that's how you get from the initial 30% to 70%+ response rate: just keep bugging them repeatedly.
3. If the classes are small, then I also tried giving out candy, emphasizing that it is for filling out the forms, not for what they write, and also kinda framing it (the candy distribution) as a little joke.
The combination of these has helped me get to 100% response rate in some classes.
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