‘To be honest? I’ve got better things to do. Then again, maybe I’m just lazy.’ Jesse Smit (25) studies English and has never filled out a course evaluation. ‘It’s also because I’m like, who am I to judge a course?’

Psychology student Lies Venema (20) really only fills one out if someone shoves the form at her. ‘If it’s in my email inbox, I won’t even look at it.’

It’s a problem at faculties across the university. Increasingly fewer students fill out the evaluations. It’s been this way for years, says Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) vice dean Manda Broekhuis. Her faculty investigated the low response to the course evaluations ten years ago. They looked at everything: when are they being filled out? And by whom? 

The investigation showed that the students who didn’t fill out the evaluations were the same students who would show up to class the least. ‘They were much less involved in their studies’, says Broekhuis.

Constructive

That’s disconcerting, because when evaluations are done right, it can really impact the quality of education and its improvement. Most feedback ends up being constructive. ‘Things that make lecturers go, thanks, I didn’t know that’, says Klaas van Veen, vice dean at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences (BSS).

Besides, it works both ways: students who are more enthusiastic about their course tend to fill out more evaluations, but filling out the evaluation also draws students into the world of academics more. According to Femke Kramer, faculty council member and chair of the programme committee (PC) at the Dutch department, that’s important if they want to accurately assess the quality of education.

If it’s in my email, I won’t even look at it

But students’ involvement has only declined over the past few years. The most important reason is the Covid pandemic. ‘That really did some damage. To the evaluations, too’, says Van Veen. Plus, in an effort to be more sustainable, faculties have switched to digital feedback forms. ‘I think this also made people a little more reluctant to fill them out.’

But evaluating a course can be really valuable: there’s a long list of things that were changed because of the feedback students provided, such as the amount of literature students have to read, or the way assignments are spread out. ‘Sometimes, students will have three courses for which they have to do time-consuming assignments all at once. Individual lecturers don’t have that overview’, says Kramer.

Representative

‘Take the whole thing that happened with Tjeerd Andringa. That shows how important course evaluations are, because so much can go wrong in the classroom’, says Elisa Kupers, chair of the PC for pedagogical and educational sciences. ‘Andringa’s actions didn’t come to light for years.’ According to her, students are the only ones who really know what happens during class.

The PCs always use the evaluations, says Kupers. They’re dispatched to the lecturers involved so they can respond to it. Everything is then discussed in the committee, and the year after that, they check if the course has improved. But they also discuss the courses that get good feedback. What exactly went right, and why? ‘Other lecturers can then learn from that.’

It’s important that the number of evaluations is representative. It’s difficult to draw any conclusions if only 10 percent of the people in the class filled it out. On top of that, not all comments are useful. ‘Someone once critiqued my English for not being very good, when all the classes had been in Dutch’, says Roel Jonkers, vice dean at the arts faculty and professor of neurolinguistics.

‘Evaluations shouldn’t get personal, either’, says Van Veen. ‘I once saw an evaluation of a lecturer where a student had written in the notes section that they felt she was more focused on her divorce than on her students. What a lot of nerve.’

Happy student

But Rasmus Steinkrauss, lecturer of linguistics and chair of the arts faculty council, says that it’s actually a question if the current way of evaluating, which uses mainly quantitative surveys, is even very valuable. 

‘Evaluation is mainly concerned with student happiness, rather than the quality of the course’, he says. ‘Evaluations should really focus on that.’ Jonkers agrees. ‘Evaluations shouldn’t become a popularity poll. It’s about the contents of the course.’

Evaluations shouldn’t become a popularity poll

Research has shown that nice, easy-going lecturers get a better evaluation than strict and demanding ones. ‘Right now, we’re basically asking students if they liked their lecturer and the course. When we should really be asking if the course was hard enough’, says Kramer. ‘A lecturer being nice and doing fun things doesn’t say much about what a course has taught students. The current evaluation method doesn’t showcase what students learned.’

Kupers and Van Veen concur. The former thinks it might be a good idea to take a good look at how the questions on the current evaluation are phrased. Van Veen takes it a step further: ‘Maybe it’s time we realise the current way of evaluating is done for. People have to fill out so many things all the time. They’re tired of evaluating things.’

Discussions

At the arts faculty, they’ve therefore started a pilot for a new method of evaluation: panel discussions. In brief, this means that the PC’s student representatives for that year talk to their fellow students about the courses they took. These representatives will be specially trained in having these discussions. The students participating in the pilot are also briefed on the protocol.

This leads to a much more in-depth and qualitative evaluation of the courses, says Steinkrauss. In the summer, the faculty will assess what this type of evaluation yields. The original evaluation questionnaire will also still be used. 

At FEB, they’re also looking for a way to get a better response. In addition to discussions with student representatives led by faculty association Quest (Quality of Education for Students), the faculty board’s student member recently made a video showing what exactly the faculty does with the evaluations. ‘We wanted to show students how useful it was for them to fill them out. We show the clip during introduction periods and at the start of courses’, says Broekhuis.

Mandatory

At BSS, they’re considering having discussions like the arts faculty is doing right now in addition to the yearly evaluations. Another option is making filling out the evaluation mandatory. For instance, students might only get access to their grades on Progress if they’ve completed the course evaluation. ‘But that’s a sensitive issue’, says Van Veen. ‘Is that something we should be doing? Some students might just fill it out really quickly because they have to. That still wouldn’t tell us much.’

People already have to fill out so much, they’re tired of evaluating things

Jesse doesn’t think a mandatory evaluation would work. ‘That’s a pretty negative way to make us do it. A little childish, really’, he says. Lies wouldn’t mind, though. ‘Sure, it’s a little forceful, but it would elicit a response.’

She thinks the panel discussions are a good idea, too. Would she want to be on such a panel? ‘I don’t know. I think evaluating courses is pretty difficult. Who am I to criticise? What am I basing my critique on?’

Kramer understands that students might be insecure about that. But in the panel discussion pilot programme, students are being instructed to base their evaluation on the study guide. This explains exactly what the course aims are and the learning goals students should have reached by the end and how they should have done that. 

‘It’s a great frame of reference to judge the quality by’, she says. ‘Kind of like a contract that students can fall back on.’

Dutch