The Controversy of Course Evaluations
The Associated Press released an article by Justin Pope yesterday that highlighted some of the pitfalls and redeeming qualities of course evaluations at the collegiate level. Pope did a great job of finding reliable sources to speak to- professors, teaching advocates, and researchers- but fails to leave out a major demographic for this piece: students.
Some of the highlights of this article are towards the end, when Pope discusses some of the facts that influence how students evaluate their professor. Things like attractiveness, gender, grading patterns, and the availability of chocolate in the classroom tend to influence how well or poorly received an educator’s valiant efforts towards the eradication of stupidity are received.
However, I can’t help but wonder why he left out such an important group of people when he decided who to interview. Researchers can say all they want, but students are the ones who fill out those evaluations- so why weren’t any of them spoken to? He asserts that some students don’t really think about these evaluations as much as they ought to, but I think that in asserting that belief, he’s undermining the students who really do see the value of their thoughts.
This piece sort of works as a feature about Kristi Upson-Saia, but again, I’m not quite sure about his choice of focus subjects. She’s an assistant professor at Occidental College, and she claims that these evals “can be devastating.” My only questions, though, are (a) why haven’t I ever heard of Occidental College, and (b) why didn’t he focus on someone with a higher rank than an assistant professor?
I was disappointed by the end of this piece. I feel like there wasn’t enough thought given to his subject matter, nor was there enough variety in his research.
