More than a popularity contest

The lecturer reviews his students’ course evaluations and heaves a deep sigh. Not only have few people bothered to fill them out, but the results are useless. One student didn’t like the course and gave it zeroes all around, and another is just spiteful about everything. They clearly just got a bad grade. So what’s the point of all this? ‘It’s just bureaucratic nonsense’, the lecturer says.

After each course, students fill out an evaluation form. The idea is that these evaluations can help improve the quality of education. Bad lecturers can be held accountable; excessive material can be cut; similar courses can be made to complement each other. Evaluation tools differ by faculty: the arts faculty uses standardised electronic questionnaires, for example, while the law department organises meetings between lecturers and students.

Negative attitude

After the students have evaluated a course, the education committee gets involved. This committee, which consists of students and lecturers, can ask lecturers to explain themselves if they deem it necessary.

It sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? In fact, student party Lijst Calimero thought it was such a good method that they asked the University Council to put more emphasis on the evaluations. They even suggested making the results public, so students could take them into account when choosing which courses to take.

But the other parties disapprove. ‘It could influence students too much: if you read a bad review of a book, you will start reading it with a negative attitude’, says Casper Albers, with the Personnel faction. He is against evaluations being used as an indicator of quality. ‘It’s completely out of the question.’

Tricky

His concerns are shared by the student factions from the Democratische Academie Groningen (DAG) and Studentenorganisatie Groningen (SOG). ‘We don’t think that it’s a good idea to allow students to use earlier evaluations in their decision whether or not to take a course’, says DAG faction member Tim van Heuven.

Wiebe Dam, with SOG, agrees: ‘We are against making the feedback public. We don’t think a “ranking” based on earlier evaluations is something we should want.’

Thousands of evaluations are filled out for hundreds of courses each block, but the results are still tricky to interpret. And they certainly can’t be used as a way to assess the quality of education.

‘It’s more like a popularity poll’, says professor of neuroendocrinology Anton Scheurink. ‘There are some things we shouldn’t use the evaluation results for. They’re not like grades on a report card.’

Spite

Clemens Six, at the history department, knows that there are students who write mean remarks out of spite: ‘It’s a common problem that people talk about a lot. It’s often students who had a bad grade and who think they can have their revenge this way.’

Albers, who works as a statistician at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, says the timing of the evaluations is important, as well. ‘There’s a correlation between how difficult an exam was and how a course is evaluated when the evaluation is filled out directly after the exam. Online surveys often suffer from a low response, which means the results aren’t representative.’

There’s also the issue of gender bias; female lecturers tend to be judged more harshly than male ones. And then there’s the issue of the standard evaluation form, which often has questions that don’t even apply to the course in question, such as questions about how difficult the homework was, when the lecturer never handed out assignments. No wonder the course gets a bad result. ‘Although we do now have the option of adding questions to digital surveys’, says Scheurink.

Source of concern

In short: the evaluations are a source of concern. And while everyone is aware of this, a negative assessment can still greatly impact lecturers, as history professor Mineke Bosch recently said in De Groene Amsterdammer. She called evaluations ‘a radical, time-consuming procedure that often creates a fuss and sometimes even leads to tears’.

Nikolai Petrov, with the University Council’s Science faction, is familiar with the phenomenon. One of his colleagues lost all motivation when students used an anonymous survey to tell her she should be fired. This was for a course she had worked really hard to develop herself.

So, should we get rid of the evaluations altogether? That would be throwing out the baby with the bath water, people involved say. ‘There’s nothing wrong with asking students if they have any tips for their lecturer. Or whether they’re satisfied and thought the course fit in with the others that were taught in the same block. But educational quality has nothing to do with whether or not students are satisfied’, says Albers.

Scheurink sees the value in evaluations. The students’ individual remarks are what make them worth it for him. ‘There’s a lot there that’s useful.’

Different approach

In other words: please continue the evaluation, but choose a different approach. At the Faculty of Law, for example, the students’ opinions are not used as a judgement of quality. ‘The evaluations shouldn’t be standardised. We combine them with a proper discussion process. The students are asked to sit down with the lecturer and the education committee to have a proper talk’, says Bart Beijer with the quality management department. This immediately solves the low student response problem.

Lijst Calimero’s remarks also addressed the issue of too few students taking the time to fill out the questionnaires. They suggest giving the students themselves more feedback. ‘Students want to know what their feedback is being used for, or what the faculty’s plans are. Only then do they feel an evaluation is worth it’, says faction member Léon Melein.

The other Council parties liked this idea. ‘I’m glad Calimero came up with this proposal’, says Albers. ‘It’s about the practical side of course evaluations: when and how they should be filled out, and which questions should be used.’ At the same time, Albers is worried about the amount of work all this feedback could lead to. ‘Already, lecturers have to go over all the course evaluations and justify their work to the education and exam committees if the results are bad.’

Dialogue

DAG faction member Tim van Heuven is also enthusiastic. ‘We share Calimero’s idea to turn the “monologue” into a dialogue”. Give lecturers the opportunity to make their own evaluation forms, instead of just using a standard one.’

SOG faction member Wiebe Dam wants an improved dialogue between students and their faculties. He wants the faculties to say that they’ve seen the evaluations and that they’ll come up with tangible plans for improvement.

In the meantime, lecturers themselves are looking to give meaning to the course evaluations. ‘We certainly need the opinions of students. The question is, how do we use them?’ says Six. ‘I prefer talking to my students. I organise these talks on my own, at the end of the courses I teach. My tip: just ask the students for their opinions, and then you’ll get the desired constructive criticism.’

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