How realistic is it to expect an honest evaluation?
I have been helping out a local university, teaching as an adjunct professor the past 3 years and my students have filled out university-prescribed evaluations each semester. Regarding univeristy instructor evaluations, I observed a few things about my students (I did the same things when I was in college):
Lots of students are afraid they will get a bad grade if they give a bad "grade"...even if the evaluation is done after final grades are due or even if administered by a third party. Others just don't care or would rather be sleeping/eating/drunk/golfing, so they give all good or average scores (I watched them bubble in ansers without even reading the questions). Some students are ticked because they slept through the semester and didn't get a good grade, so they give you as low an evaluation as possible. Some think your God's gift to the university just because you're there. The rest provide honest feedback based on their experience in the course. The evaulation results that I get break it down by student (no names) and a median. I was always at or above average on most every category, but I never took any comments personally or took much stock in the results because I knew students didn't fill them in honestly. I guess the results would have indicated if there was a major problem, but for the most part I think they used were for low-level quality control not necessarily achieving excellence as an instructor.
Having been on the other end of the evaluation process, I fill out those sorts of things more honestly now. I'd much rather have a bad, honest evaluation than an "I don't care" evaluation; at least then I know what things I need to work on.
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