In their study of student and faculty perceptions of student evaluations of teaching, Sojka, Gupta, and Deeter-Schmelz identify a level of distrust between students and faculty. Faculty believe that the students give better ratings to instructors that are simply entertaining or grade more leniently, while students don't always agree that this is the case. Students, on the other hand, believe that faculty don't take their input seriously, and don't bother to make any changes based on the evaluations (Sojka, 2002).

Despite misgivings faculty might hold about the accuracy or efficacy of student teaching evaluations, they do represent student perceptions of the course. "Perceptions are not necessarily accurate representations of the objective facts, but they nevertheless constitute the entirety of the student end of the teaching process" (Hobson, 2001) and thus should not be ignored.

However, student teaching evaluations can only serve a formative purpose if four conditions are met. "First, teachers must learn something new from them. Second, they must value the new information. Third, they must understand how to make improvements. And, finally, teachers must be motivated to make the improvements, either intrinsically or extrinsically" (Hobson, 2001).

The process of reviewing your student teaching evaluations can be equal parts harrowing and confusing. This newsletter has gathered together a few tips that we hope will simplify the process.

1. Before looking at your student evaluations, reflect on your beliefs and goals for the course. Ask yourself 'What did I hope to accomplish in this class? How well do I think the class met these goals?' This will help contextualize student responses. After reviewing the evaluations, ask yourself 'Where do my opinions and my students' opinions diverge?' (Stanford, 1997)
2. Assess your strengths and weaknesses as defined by the student evaluations. "Look at what your students say you are doing well before you work on suggested changes. Identify the teaching behaviors or course variables that contribute to high ratings." Keep these in mind when making changes so that you don't inadvertently alter aspects of your teaching that are already working well (Auburn).
3. Target one or two items for improvement in the next course and keep changes manageable (Stanford, 1997). "Identify which student comments have the highest priority to you in terms of their importance in meeting your teaching and learning objectives and focus on them first. Get comfortable with new teaching techniques, procedures and policies before making major course or instruction modifications" (Auburn).
4. Most importantly, don't give up on new methods if you don't see immediate change—it can take more than one semester to see improvement.

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Taken as a whole, a course's worth of written comments can seem overwhelming. However, there are some methods that may help create a structure for easier analysis.

1. Put written comments in context by grouping them according to the overall course rating given by each student (Stanford, 1997).
2. If multiple comments say the same thing, put them in the same pile. Then place these piles in one of two categories, strengths or weaknesses, with a list of the most frequently made comments in each (Stanford, 1997).
3. "Difficult as it may be, pay close attention to any criticism that appears more than once, even if it is a minority opinion and many other positive comments contradict it. There may be a small group of students regularly attracted to your course who could benefit from another approach or a different kind of assessment" (Dartmouth).
4. "Constructing a graph can also facilitate organization of written comments. First, make a chart listing the four or five characteristics you believe lead to effective teaching... Place student comments under the characteristic with which it most closely relates. Place a minus sign (-) next to negative comments and a plus sign (+) next to positive comments. Tally up the pluses and minuses at the bottom as a way to highlight and summarize the comments and provide direction for change" (Auburn).

When assessing numerical data, it is important to look at both the median and the mean, because either one by itself can be misleading, with a few low scores bringing the average down considerably, even though the majority of the students had a very high opinion of the course. The median will give you the middle score, which will often be quite different. This is important, because although you want to know that a few "students were pretty dissatisfied and think of ways to address that, you also want to see that for most of the students, the course was 'Excellent.'" (Dartmouth)

"Another way to look at the numerical scores is to look at the distribution or percentage of responses and group these into two or three categories." For example, group Excellent and Very Good, Good and Fair, and Poor and Very Poor with each other. "This type of analysis yields a different picture of your teaching than the one median score and may provide information that can better describe your student's perceptions" (Auburn).

When students don't understand course objectives, goals and outcomes, they feel frustrated and leave poor evaluations. They can also react badly when a course didn't match their own expectations for it (Dartmouth). One of the simplest ways to address negative comments about course organization, workload, or desired outcomes is to review your syllabus to see if simple modifications can improve specificity and clarity (Auburn). Include your desired course outcomes at the very top of your syllabus and "take a sentence or two for each assignment to explain how it furthers the goals you have set for learning... Give the students enrolled in the course a heads-up via email or Blackboard a week or more before the first class meeting and invite them to browse the syllabus and assignments" (Dartmouth).

Although faculty often hold the idea that students are more inclined to give negative evaluations when they received a poor grade, "grades affect student responses less when grading rubrics have been explicit and grading is perceived as consistent and reasonable" (Dartmouth).

Because evaluations are completed at the end of a course, students never get the chance to see any potential changes or improvements made based on their suggestions, leading them to distrust the process of evaluation. Sojka, Gupta, and Deeter-Schmelz recommend that faculty members implement their own mid-term evaluation. This would "provide students a chance to evaluate the course while time remains in the semester/quarter to amend it. Even if a faculty member chose not to change the course, there would still be an opportunity to address student concerns... Allowing student input fosters mutual respect and a collaborative learning environment" (Sojka, 2002).