Student Evals and Tenure!

[HigherEd7]

I discussed with a few colleagues who have told me that once they make tenure they tighten down on students because they need to have high student evaluations in teaching to get tenure. I have also heard and read posts on the forum where students have said they can stop you from making tenure or cause some problems. SMH on this because if this is the case and the world of higher ed knows this they should take control of the students.

[Ruralguy]

This seems almost trollish, because it so likely to generate wide-spread emotional responses and some responses based on facts on the ground.

Rather than get into details, suffice to say that evals have been around for decades. There are tons of issues related to various biases which may or may not be relevant to your or even your school.

As for whether junior profs are more lenient so as to score better....maybe. I'm sure a number of them are a bit intimidated into doing that.  I think there's a fair amount of feedback, both from students and other faculty over ones career, that this sort of effect tends to wash out over time. It wouldn't suprise me though if senior faculty tend to have slightly lower eval scores and slightly lower average grades. But I don't know that's so...

[mamselle]

Maybe market segmentation and triage are better responses than "taking control"?

The segmentation, I find, clusters around
   a) students who want to do well, like the class, and say good things about it, which they honestly believe to be true
   b) students who want to do well, don't like the class, and say mixed things about it, which they honestly believe to be true
   c) students who want to do well, for whom some aspect of the class did not work, and who believe their efforts to say
       so honestly will result in a better class as their comments are read, taken seriously, and used as a basis for amendment
       of troublesome issues. 
   d) students who are borderline between caring and uncaring, may like the class or not, say medium-to-slightly bad things about it,
       some of which are probably untrue, although they may still believe themselves to speak honestly
   e) students who have deeper distractions and problems, are still trying, but are conflicted, yet honestly
       own their own issues and try to be fair about them, while making honest critiques where they think they are due.
   f) students who are uncaring, may not want to be in school, or wanted to once, and have forgotten that feeling,
       and are resentful or angry at the world for some other reason, and are lashing out because they have very little power
       elsewhere and avail themselves of the petty ability to try to hurt someone.
   g) students who have yet to grow up, still expect handholding, or never did well in secondary school and have no skills for college,
       who will say bad things about everything because of how they feel about themselves and their sense of being hopelessly behind.
   h) students who are seriously impaired, morally, intellectually, or emotionally, who take pathological glee in hurting others.

That's eight different, broadly-based segments.

Triage involves looking at all the evaluations at face value. All but (f) and (h) have some kind of truth behind what has been said. So, maybe 12% of your evals can be disregarded, but you want to be careful it's the right 12%. You may or may not be able to guess who wrote what, but the tone of the writing itself can tell you whether it's true or not.

If it's true, whether it's flattering or not, it has to be considered seriously.

I absolutely agree that you can get a class where the evals just don't reflect the actual situation, and in freshman classes, especially, the temptation to avail oneself of the "(f)/(h) option" is so overwhelming, or one the "(a-b-c-d-e-g)" options so deeply troubling that they lose perspective.

One of the first classes like that, which I taught without much lead time for preparation, was scary-bad in the evals, and I was sure they'd never ask me back.

But the secretary (who, like most, secretly ran the department) said when she gave me the envelope, "Now, don't be upset by these, the chair knows to ignore most of them" and they had me back for several more courses, so I believed her. 

But it's also the case that you can take some of the critique (vs. the criticism) to heart and learn from it, and that's where the triage comes in.

Sort the slips (if that's what you get) or use different highlighters on the lines (do a print-out if it's online) that you can either a) see a glimmer of truth in; b) see more than three times, c) recognize as (f)/(h)-level churlish, or d) don't understand at all.

Formulate a response to each group, then decide if those are changes you could make, should make, can ignore and refrain from making--whatever.

Then decide how and when you'll make the changes you can make, make peace with the ones you're going to ignore, and go on from there.

You can't control others, and you can't control situations: you can only control yourself and how you respond to the situation.

M.