Spring Break
Professor evaluations: What do they really say?
By: Nancy Lan
Issue date: 6/29/07 Section: News
Originally published: 6/29/07 at 4:32 AM EST
Last update: 6/29/07 at 4:32 AM EST
Originally published: 6/29/07 at 4:32 AM EST
Last update: 6/29/07 at 4:32 AM EST
The last time you filled out a professor evaluation, did you just mark your answers straight down a row, skip the essay portion, and leave class? After you finished, did you feel like you made a difference at Drexel?
Administrators such as Donna Murasko, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as Selçuk Güçeri, Dean of the College of Engineering, strive to emphasize the importance of completing evaluations to students. "In a perfect world, students would fill out the evaluations no matter how they felt," stated Murasko. Currently, schools such as the College of Engineering has an estimated return rate of 30% each quarter. There was no reported rate of return for the College of Arts and Sciences.
"If you get a 30% response, you don't know whether it's towards the good or bad…that's where the focus should be," Güçeri said.
Murasko agreed that many times there is a "skewed" view because "either most students don't fill it out, or many times the only students who fill it out are upset with something."
However, Güçeri feels that one cannot take a term's evaluations and refer to them as a single occurrence. Rather, he prefers to look at bad evaluations as a "red flag," using the trend of professors' progressions over the course of a few years to assess different aspects that may or may not make that them "good" professors.
Some question whether professors are being evaluated solely on their skills in teaching, or whether it has become a race for entertainment in the classroom. In a recent commentary published in the Triangle (Teaching evaluations and students first, June 8), S. Rantjeevan H. Hoole, auxiliary professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University, stated that "dense subjects get lower evaluations than fun subjects…students get to view movies and are more easily drawn into discussions." Güçeri, however, feels that more "entertaining" professors "would affect evaluations, but at the same time it's a part of the teaching process…often, people who learn in an engaging environment are more able to retain and apply that information."
Administrators such as Donna Murasko, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as Selçuk Güçeri, Dean of the College of Engineering, strive to emphasize the importance of completing evaluations to students. "In a perfect world, students would fill out the evaluations no matter how they felt," stated Murasko. Currently, schools such as the College of Engineering has an estimated return rate of 30% each quarter. There was no reported rate of return for the College of Arts and Sciences.
"If you get a 30% response, you don't know whether it's towards the good or bad…that's where the focus should be," Güçeri said.
Murasko agreed that many times there is a "skewed" view because "either most students don't fill it out, or many times the only students who fill it out are upset with something."
However, Güçeri feels that one cannot take a term's evaluations and refer to them as a single occurrence. Rather, he prefers to look at bad evaluations as a "red flag," using the trend of professors' progressions over the course of a few years to assess different aspects that may or may not make that them "good" professors.
Some question whether professors are being evaluated solely on their skills in teaching, or whether it has become a race for entertainment in the classroom. In a recent commentary published in the Triangle (Teaching evaluations and students first, June 8), S. Rantjeevan H. Hoole, auxiliary professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University, stated that "dense subjects get lower evaluations than fun subjects…students get to view movies and are more easily drawn into discussions." Güçeri, however, feels that more "entertaining" professors "would affect evaluations, but at the same time it's a part of the teaching process…often, people who learn in an engaging environment are more able to retain and apply that information."
