Can We Get a Lil’ Feedback Please?
February 12, 2008 | Contributed by Cory Marshall
Have you finished filling out your course evaluation forms yet? Yea, me neither. I’m about to admit to something that is a little petty and shallow and, well, I know it is. But I have an issue with the evaluation form process here at Whitworth and would like to see if it is, at all, a mutual feeling among the students.
Last semester the school really hammered us both through emails and in the classroom about filling out the course evaluations. They claimed (and I’m not implying that they lied) that the evaluations are helpful in deciding registrar’s policies, even going so far as withholding grades for a couple of extra days in the event that we did not complete all of our individual evaluations. I have no problem with this except that I did complete each and every one of my evaluations, but when the day arrived and I was supposed to receive my early-notice reward of grades, none showed up. In fact, it was another two days before they did.
Now, if one were to develop the list of the 1 million gravest problems in Washington State, this issue still wouldn’t make the cut. It was, however, a slight irritance that they would go to so much trouble asking us to do our part then renig on their own. Is this enough to make me despise the registrar’s office? No. But it is enough, however, to make me not feel like taking the time to write out more evaluations in my final semesters.
However, I do have a solution to remedy my pouting: Give the students feedback on policy shifts, decisions, or affirmations that resulted from their course evaluations.
Regardless of whether or not the Registrar’s continues to offer an earlier date to receive grades for those who complete their evaluations than those who don’t, I think it is a reasonable request to provide the students with the results of the surveys, similar to what ASWU does. (If registrar’s already does this, then they do not advertise it and we’ve got an entirely different issue to discuss.) So, because I’m so fond of lists, here are a few reasons why registrar’s should give us feedback on what effect the evaluations had upon future classes.
1) The early notice of grades is hardly an incentive. Here’s a quick, Myers-Briggs-esque test to see what kind of a person you are. a) would you or would you not fill out the evaluations without an incentive? and b) are you or are you not patient enough to wait three days to find out your grades? I think very few people are in the “I’m not patient enough to wait and I never would’ve filled one out anyway” category. At least, not enough to make it a fruitful policy. Feedback on evaluations would be the best incentive.
2) We would know what classes worked. We all have our specific lists of professors and classes that are Must-See-TV quality. But they’re usually isolated to our specific majors.
What if, for you non-science majors, a class came out that fulfilled the science requirement called “BI-102, Study of Gingivitis.” There wouldn’t exactly be hundreds of fingers ready to hit the send button on Friday morning of registration week. What if, however, the registrars released the results of their evaluations and one of the bullet points was “38 out of the 42 students in the brand new gingivitis class claimed it to be one of the best courses they encountered of all their general ed’s.” Wouldn’t you be more inclined to give it a shot?
The bottom line is, I’m not usually interested in being the guinea pig for a class or wasting one of my precious hours of classtime on a long shot. But if I was given feedback on what the previous students felt, it would make a big difference in what classes I take an interest in–even if it was in a field of study not even remotely similar to my own.
3) We would know what classes don’t work. Hey, not every idea was a great one. How many times have you thought about taking a specific class, only to be told by a previous attendee “Don’t do it; the essay’s were too numerous and time-consuming.” or something like that? Well what if this criticism wasn’t merely a single student complaint but represented a real flaw in the class? And what if that flaw was communicated through the evaluations? And what if the evaluations made the professor decide to change something about the essays? And what if that change was never communicated back to the students? People who were eager to take a class would avoid it because of an issue with the class that no longer exists.
I don’t think we should be told that “All of the students in this class thought that Professor Y smelled funny.” Criticism is stupid; constructive criticism gets things done. How much additional respect would you have for our school to hear them say “Hey, we screwed up here and we’re gonna do better next time?” Giving the students feedback on the evaluations could be one way of communicating such.
4) The communication would increase in both directions. Apparantly the student body doesn’t do so well with filling out the evaluations, hence the attempted incentive with the grades. You want to push those rates up a little higher? Give us the same feedback you’re asking of us. The dialogue would show the students that this isn’t a waste of time and that the evaluations actually do instigate progress. Again, I don’t think the school lies to us when they say the evaluations are helpful; I just would be happier if I had evidence to the contrary.
Let’s get the dialogue going. What do you think?
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