Student Publications
University of Houston
151C Communications Bldg
Houston, TX 77204-4015
713.743.5350

©1991-2007
Student Publications,
All rights reserved.

Last modified:

Contact:
ktruitt@uh.edu

Opinion

Teachers deserve accurate evaluations 

Eva Kaminskayte
Opinion Columnist

Each semester, as courses start to wind down and students prepare for final exams and term papers, students are required to fill out evaluation forms on their classes and professors. Some professors joke that they want their students to bubble in the tell-all scantrons before the tests are handed out so that the evaluations will be more positive.

Unfortunately, they have a point. A study conducted by three economists at Ohio State University found a strong correlation between grades and evaluations, which implies that students are rewarding professors who reward them, Insidehighereducation.com reported.

Web sites such as www.ratemyprofessors.com that let current or former students make recommendations to potential students can be grossly inaccurate. A bad review from a student with a grudge who may not have turned in an assignment or not prepared for a test hurts a professor's reputation and discourages others from taking the course. 

Insidehighereducation.com reported that the study also found that students "tend to give lesser evaluations to instructors who are women or who were born outside the United States. And they found this despite not finding any correlation between instructor identity and the level of learning that took place." 

What's even more disturbing is that students rate the quality of a course based on whether a professor is attractive or an easy grader. Professors at Central Michigan University looked at ratings for nearly 7,000 faculty members from 370 institutions in the United States and Canada and found that the more attractive and easier professors are, the more likely they'll get rated as good teachers, Insidehighereducation.com reported.

Coasting through school with easy classes while enjoying the university lifestyle sounds appealing but will not help anyone now or later down the line when it's time to apply the knowledge to real-life situations. Professors who make difficult tests, expecting students to learn and retain the information and -- heaven forbid -- earn their grades, should not have their efforts to educate lost and start being penalized because of student evaluations.

There's also no way that a bunch of bubbles on a scale ranging from outstanding to poor, with the same sheet being used for different courses and different departments, can accurately gauge the effectiveness of a course. 

Few students are willing to take an objective look at a course and its instructor in order to write evaluations that are free from personal bias. While it is important to get feedback from students, evaluations like these should not play a big part when professors are up for consideration for tenure, pay increases or, in some cases, whether they are hired back for future semesters.

More focus should be placed on peer evaluations from other professors who know what qualities make a good teacher. Evaluations based on the teacher's teaching style would be more helpful to students who learn best in certain types of class settings.

If nothing else, the evaluations should be tailored to different departments, and the same forms should not be used to evaluate calculus and French literature courses. Something has to change to give teachers a better sense of what students are taking away from their classes and to learn ways that they can improve their courses. 

There will never be a perfectly accurate method of judging the effectiveness of classes, but standard scantron forms on in-class evaluations and smiley faces on Web sites are not the way to go. 

Kaminskayte, a political science/public relations senior, 
can be reached at e.kaminskayte@gmail.com.