[jestinjoy1]

"When I joined another institution that emphasized course evaluations, I saw that as an excellent sign of a more student-focused organization. Promotion and pay were based on achieving the highest student satisfaction ratings. But, I soon learned that statistically insignificant differences in evaluation scores determined wildly divergent financial remuneration. Savvy colleagues whispered that the quickest path to money was to never give students frank feedback: “flatter and never find fault.” Or, better yet, don’t give any feedback at all until the student evaluations are turned in: “entertain them, then give one big final exam or final paper.” "

I am a teacher in Higher Education in India and this is what I am experiencing now. If I give good grades to students and entertain them they will give good feedback and that will in turn fetch me more incentives. No need to teach students anything.

Teaching is something that can be enjoyed but if it get worse, you cant find a job worst than this.

[nileshtrivedi]

This is the problem with teaching - the incentives are never perfectly aligned. Students are the real customers - but they don't know what's best for them so they can't do a fair evaluation. Education is such a long-term investment, that it's effectiveness can only be measured after years. Which means short-term gimmicks will continue to be rewarded by the market.

[tdumitrescu]

This played a big role in my decision to leave a tenured position several years ago to go work in web dev. The university's increasingly biz-dev-oriented emphasis on student evaluations and quantity of diplomas pushed through turned the whole thing into a consumer-oriented relationship where you're expected to just give 'em that paper they're paying for. Shouldn't be the purpose of higher education IMO.

[webhat]

Just looked at the impressive list of institutes you attended. What did you teach?

[tdumitrescu]

Musicology! Feel free to email me to chat further.

[YokoZar]

My favorite variant of this trick is to conduct the evaluations on a day where only the most dedicated students will show up, such as one strongly hinted as being optional in the syllabus.

[javajosh]

Teachers should be judged based on student evaluations - but those evaluations should be deferred until, oh, 10 years later when students can honestly and dispassionately answer the question: "did that teacher enrich my life, prepare me for the livelihood I'm actually earning today?"

Of course, administrations can't wait 10 years for feedback, more's the pity.

[6d0debc071]

Even deferring feedback by a couple of years would make a difference - and as institutions that can afford long-term investments (my university, for instance, licenses some of its buildings to government on century leases,) it doesn't seem like there's any huge hurry.

Or perhaps restructuring their courses so that there's more practical work - perhaps working closely with companies in the area with internship schemes - to allow for more accurate in course feedback.

Or getting feedback from other teachers in the domain - that would be imperfect but I suspect might still be better than asking the students, assuming that the teachers were generally trustworthy folks.

Or doing, optional, follow up quizzes on the material taught... six months down the line and paying the students £20 each to do so - that would at least help to assess retained material (though not the worth of that material itself I suppose.)

[RussianCow]

Not to mention I'm not going to remember any of my professors in 10 years.

[jjoonathan]

The ones you wouldn't remember probably weren't sufficiently different from the mean to warrant a positive or negative score in the first place. Meanwhile, the ones that you do remember probably were.

Just make opting out of each individual question easy (add a N/A or "don't remember" option). Sure, you'll collect less data, but I imagine that you'll get at least partial cancellation after multiplication by the SNR, possibly much more than partial cancellation.

[ACow_Adonis]

Oh trust me, you do.

Not all of them, no. Of course not.

But you remember the great ones, and you remember the god damned awful ones. The great leave an emotional mark on you, they inspired you to go into their field, they showed you something that wowed you and has stuck with you over those 10 years. And the damned awful ones leave emotional scars that don't fade, and you'll talk to old veterans/classmates about them like you did a tour of 'Nam together...

[kbenson]

You might be surprised. The teachers that taught you relevant things that you end up using over and over tend to be remembered in my experience.

Of course some courses lend themselves to imparting this information better than others, and if you end up in fields other than your major there may be less chances to find your learning useful.

[watwut]

But then you are evaluating class he was assigned to teach and its relevance to your career, not his teaching. I did not used whatever I learned about networking or cryptography much, but that does not mean those teachers were bad. Nor does it mean CS major should not contain those classes.

[6d0debc071]

So those people will only get the feedback from the people who went on to use their knowledge. That sounds fair enough to me. :/

[phreanix]

Student feedback should be valued for sure, but there has to be another way to evaluate a teacher's skills and ability to impart lasting knowledge.

[webhat]

And as a result of these evaluations coming too soon teaching becomes a popularity contest.

[arthurgibson]

This scenario also happens in the US college space, experience from a former community college professor in 2 different states. The students basically try to leverage these surveys for grades. Professor decided to become a full time tutor, better pay and less hassle.