Friday, October 26, 2001

Evaluations are not worth the effort
By Chrissy Braden
Skiff Sfaff

Each semester, students have the opportunity to fill out a teacher evaluation form for each of their teachers. The forms TCU uses consist of a multiple choice section and a short answer or comment section.

Presented as an opportunity for students to say what they think about the teacher, the forms do provide this opportunity. However, in most cases, only the teacher will find out what the student thinks about him or her.

Mike Sacken, a professor of education, has redesigned a shorter evaluation form, but the form doesn’t need to be redesigned. It needs to be eliminated. These evaluations aren’t worth the effort that some students put into them.

Evaluation forms are effective only when the teacher being evaluated sincerely cares about improving. Some students fill out their forms with this in mind. However, other students use the forms as a message to a department chair or a dean that the teacher they’re evaluating should no longer be employed by TCU.

However, the Scantron results are the only part of the evaluation department chairs and deans will see. Students must convey their evaluation through these assigned questions and answers.

The Scantron portion of the evaluations doesn’t have enough options for a student to give an adequate evaluation of a teacher. How effective or ineffective a teacher is can’t be shown through multiple choice. These evaluation forms only answer the “what,” not the “why.”

Students can’t show why a teacher is fantastic or horrible through a, b, c, d or e. They need to use their own words to describe how they really feel about a teacher and why they feel that way. The evaluation form is useless because it focuses on an ineffective evaluation tool.

The results of evaluations don’t always go very far. While some department chairs and deans may seriously look over results, others don’t. This means the evaluation students carefully fill out about a teacher they love or hate could be useless. The teacher evaluation forms make students believe they have a voice about teachers.

The department chairs and deans who overlook the teacher evaluation forms are missing an opportunity to give students the best educators they can.

The evaluation forms are also useless because students approach them differently. A lot of the choices for answers on the Scantron are dependent on a student’s judgment call. One person may consider his or her feelings of ice cream as “good” while another person may have the same feeling but call it “great.” Therefore, evaluations are useless because students answer based on their different understandings of words.

The current forms are the only evaluation teachers have. The forms are completed at the end of the semester when it’s too late for a student’s feedback to help his or her particular class. Evaluations can help a teacher only for future semesters. It is unlikely that a student will benefit from changes teachers make based on his or her comments.

Another system should be in place to let teachers know how they’re doing throughout the semester. This would be a better system because a teacher could see whether they were really improving because the same students would be judging them throughout the semester.

Students get progress reports if they’re at or below a certain grade in the middle of the semester. Teachers need a similar progress report by students so that they have an opportunity to teach better in their own courses within a semester.

If a teacher receives their evaluations at the end of the semester, they are distracted by a long holiday from school before they’re in a classroom again. This break allows some teachers to forget what they need to improve.

Some students will consider this burdensome. However, it’s worth some students feeling a burden if it means other students’ opinions of teachers will be considered.

The current evaluation forms need to be replaced by an evaluation system. This system could include department chairs and deans observing teachers within their departments.

Students shouldn’t be asked for an opinion of a teacher if this opinion can’t make an impact.

Chrissy Braden is a junior political science and news-editorial journalism major from San Antonio.
She can be contacted at (l.c.braden@student.tcu.edu).