As the end of the semester draws near, ASU students are filling in bubble sheets with a No. 2 pencil, but this time it's their professors who are being put to the test.
Students fill out professor evaluations at the end of each semester.
Lina Karam, an electrical engineering associate professor, said it's nice to be able to ask the students how she can improve.
"If students are not satisfied, they can say why," she said. "I definitely read the evaluations at the end of the semester."
Clarice Deal, a Portuguese lecturer, said she also reads evaluations carefully.
"Many are funny, some are instructive, some are kind and some are critical," Deal said.
But comments from the same class can be contradictory, she added. "The teacher goes too fast, the class is too slow, the class is hard, but the teacher is fun."
Professors said the evaluations help them make changes.
Karam said the written feedback was especially helpful.
"Before evaluations I was tougher on exams," Karam said. "I wanted to cover all the material, and now I care more about [students] understanding the material than covering it."
Deal said she started using more audio-visual and computer-based aids because of the evaluations.
"Students are very positive about these technological resources," Deal said.
Aviation sophomore Eddie Varela said the evaluations are somewhat helpful, but that sometimes he just fills the evaluation to get the job done.
"I start filling out without actually reading the questions just to get out of class earlier," he said.
Secondary math education sophomore Joe Dominguez said he feels good about giving feedback to professors.
"When I write a course evaluation about a specific professor, I do feel like I am able to write what I like about them," Dominguez said. "I hope that the professor looks at them. When I wrote something good, I wanted them to know and feel how much I appreciated them."
When Dominguez criticizes professors, he said he tries not to be too harsh.
"I am sure I am specific so that professors can learn from it," he said. "One example was that I could barely understand my math teachers because a lot of them do not speak English."
Molecular biosciences senior Kimberly Spotts said evaluations are helpful to the professors because the students are honest.
"I have had a couple professors that are really influential, and they helped to do really well in class and took me under their wings," Spotts said. "It meant a lot to me to be able to give really good evaluations."
The evaluation format is the same for all courses, said Marjorie Zatz, vice provost for academic affairs. She said after the evaluations are completed, they are taken to the testing center and are available for the professors and department chairs to read.
Karam saw some problems with the evaluations, though.
"These evaluations are not adapted to each course," she said. "Some of the questions are not relevant to the course being taught, but because there is not a not-applicable option students end up answering poor, and it affects the course evaluation."
Deal said she finds the questions excellent.
"[The questions] cover the basic issues well and provide some useful information to the instructor," Deal said. "The only change I would like to see is to have the evaluation scores made public, to help students."
The course evaluations are important to promotions and tenure, the status given to faculty members that makes it easier for them to keep their job permanently, Zatz said.
"They are not the sole indicators of teaching effectiveness," Zatz added.
She said decisions made about promotions and tenure also depend on evaluations filled out by other faculty members.
Reach the reporter at tatiana.hensley@asu.edu.
